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The Origins And Development Of The Catalan Consulados Ultramarinos From The Thirteenth To The Fifteenth Centuries

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The Origins And Development Of The Catalan Consulados Ultramarinos From The Thirteenth To The Fifteenth Centuries

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Content This dissertation h a s been
m icrofilm ed exactly as received 6 7 -2 1 2 0
ROHNE, Carl Frederick, 1941-
THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CATALAN
CONSULADOS ULTRA MARINOS FROM THE THIRTEENTH
TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.
U niversity of Southern C alifornia, Ph.D., 1966
H istory, mo *;aval
University Microfihns, Inc., Ann Arbor, M ichigan
Carl Frederick Rohne
All Rights Reserved
1967
THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE
CATALAN CONSULADOS ULTRAMARINOS
FROM THE THIRTEENTH TO THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
lay
Carl Frederick Rohne
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(History)
August 1966
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
T H E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L
U N IV E R S IT Y PA RK
L O S A N G E L E S . C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
C a r l Frederick__Hc>hn.e_.
under the direction of / l . I s . . Dissertation C o m
mittee, and app ro ved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
fo r the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date.....Sep t e mb e r 3, 19 6 6.........
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
......
PREFACE
By the middle of the thirteenth century the ancient
Roman seaport of Barcelona had become a serious competitor
for the wealth of the renascent Mediterranean trade and
commerce, a position which this advantageously situated
port gradually consolidated until it could rival the popu
lous Italian communes in its wealth and in the high state
of development associated with its commercial and financial
institutions. Throughout the High Middle Ages Catalan
traders and freebooting adventurers roamed the warm
southern seas, exchanging the leather and wine and oil of
the rich eastern coast of Spain for the jewels, spices,
silks and grain proffered by other trading states. Out of
the experience of these merchant adventurers and their
fruitful, though often tempestuous, contacts with the
Italian and African trading communities evolved a complex
set of commercial and financial practices and institutions
calculated to regulate and maintain Catalan business.
Though there are a variety of minor references to
Catalan commerce and more especially to the Catalan mer
chant navy of the late Imperial epoch, it is not until the
ii
reign of Louis the Pious that the mists begin to lift from
the history of the city of Barcelona, At that time, for
both political and economic reasons, the Spanish Mark began
to assume a new importance in both French and Spanish
affairs, a role which had been denied it during the upheav
als attendant upon Gothic rule and Muslim invasion. By the
middle of the ninth century, a time of relative economic
stagnation in much of trans-Pyrenic Europe, the level of
commercial and industrial activity in Barcelona was stead
ily increasing. The king, in fact, found prosperity suffi
cient to grant a third part of certain commercial revenues
to the bishop and cathedral of Barcelona in an effort to
finance the peace of his soul. Sources for the next cen
tury indicate that the royal distribution of the profits
derived from coinage, and from duties levied upon itinerant
merchants and upon merchandise entering and leaving the
gates of Barcelona continued.
The reign of Raymond Berenguer as count of
Barcelona marks an important transition in Catalan commer
cial affairs. The promulgation of the famed Usatges marked
the first major step in the development of Catalan commer
cial law, forming the basis of all other subsequent commer
cial codes employed by the western Mediterranean trading
states for nearly two centuries. The Usatges also helped
to strengthen the dominance of Barcelona as the chief
iii
eastern Spanish emporium and factory. The count also
improved the physical facilities of Barcelona itself,
dredging the fine natural harbor and adding docks and
wharfs. Most importantly, Raymond Berenguer put the entire
coastline of Catalonia under his personal protection, guar
anteeing the safety of all merchants who came to trade «*t
Barcelona. This protection'supplemented that already
extended to travellers inland, and gave additional impetus
to the development of the naval aspects of Barcelonan mer
cantile policy.
The twelfth century marked the increasing inter
nationalization of Barcelonan commercial policy. In 1118 a
large squadron of merchant ships, for the first time pro
tected by a sizable Barcelonan war fleet, coasted to Genoa
and Pisa to trade and to solicit the friendship of those
maritime cities. Two years later the count of Barcelona
concluded the first major treaty of trade and friendship
with a Moorish prince, Arfilel of Lerida, pledging twenty
galleys in return for some small craft to be used in coastal
defense. In 1127 Roger de Hautevllle promised Raymond
Berenguer half the spoils of Sicily if the count would
assist in the pacification of the island. The spoils
included extensive commercial privileges in Sicily. I f c r
11*+7 a commercial treaty with the Genoese was concluded by
iv
Baymond Berenguer IV— the firat such treaty to be made by
Catalans with an Italian power. In return for reductions
In duties, the Genoese fleet assisted the Barcelonans In
the capture of Almeria, thus assuring the Catalans of a
firm, defensible mercantile base In southern Spain— a base
in close proximity to the flourishing North African trade.
The latter half of the twelfth centuiy witnessed
frequent struggles among Catalans, Genoese, and Pisans for
domination in the western Mediterranean trading area: a
struggle conducted in a long series of minor armed skir
mishes and veiled diplomatic threats. The Barcelonans had
hoped to dominate the waters near their port, and had hoped
to remain essentially neutral in the struggle between Genoa
and Pisa, her mightier rivals. Finally, however, Alfonso
of Aragon was forced to choose a side, and such was the
power of the Genoese lobby and of the tradition of coopera
tion with Genoa that in 1167 he concluded a treaty of
friendship with that republic, promising to exclude in per
petuity the Pisan merchants from the shores of his kingdom.
This treaty operated to the distinct advantage of the
Genoese, for in return for the promise of minor naval
assistance to the Barcelonans, the Genoese obtained the
immediate confiscation of a full half of all the goods of
the Pisan merchants unlucky enough to be in Catalonia at
v
the time•
In the thirteenth century the extraordinarily long
reign of tla1.me I, the Conqueror, saw the gradual fruition
of Barcelonan commercial policies and tactics. To
Antonio de Capmany, Barcelona’s most prolific historian,
Jaime represented the finest royal benefactor of Catalan
commerce in the Middle Ages, and it is with his reign that
the historian can first begin to trace in detail the insti
tutional developments associated with the gradually increas
ing complexity and sophistication of Barcelonan commerce.
An able student of Medieval finance, Jaime early recognized
the value of commercial revenues, and accordingly improved
the physical facilities of the port and harbor of Barcelona
and those of many of the smaller Catalan coastal towns. In
1221 he opened further communications with the ports of
Beirut and Alexandria, beginning his lifelong attempts to
trade with the Moorish states. In 1227 he gave a major
impetus to the merchant navy of Catalonia by ordering that
all merchandise shipped by his subjects from Barcelona had
to be shipped in Catalan bottoms. In 12M-3, and again in
1253 and 1266, Jaime authorized, nay insisted, that the
prohombres of Barcelona take upon their own shoulders many
of the tasks of administering the city of Barcelona and its
increasing commerce. The creation of the Council of One
Hundred to govern the city of Barcelona gave all mercantile
vi
classes and groups a share In the commercial life of the
city.
The conquest of Mallorca in 1229, the increasing
involvement in Sicily, and the treaties with the emirs of
Africa all indicate Jaime's concern for the expansion of
Catalan trade abroad. Under his crusty tutelage the
Barcelonans learned to fish more surely in the troubled
waters of Medieval international t:pade. Jaime the Con
queror's long reign marked the maturation of commercial and
diplomatic policy. His successors and the heirs of the
thirteenth century city conselleres refined the techniques
and the institutions of international commerce, and expanded
the Catalan sphere of influence beyond anything dreamt of
by Jaime and his circle. Catalans established themselves
firmly in the Byzantine empire, in Greece, in Sicily and
the Italian islands, in North Africa and the Levant. Until
the close of the fifteenth century Catalans dominated the
commercial life of Spain, building in reality the first of
Spain's overseas empires. Only with the centralizing
Castilian policies of the Catholic Monarchs did the
Catalans lose their prosperity and the strength of their
municipal institutions. The government of the city of
Barcelona had been chiefly responsible for ruling the far-
flung Catalan commercial empire, and the demise of the
vii
Catalan, cities spelled the dissolution of the Catalan com
mercial empire.
Through the work of Capmany, Antonio Soldevila,
and others, the city government of Barcelona and its rela
tionships to Medieval commerce have been clearly outlined,
as have the function and operation of that combination of
merchantsT court, port authority, and copartner in local
government with the more ancient Council of One Hundred,
the Barcelonan Consulado del Mar. But to this date no com
prehensive study has been attempted of that one institution
which most deeply influenced and controlled the merchant in
the field, the Consulado Ultramarino, the consulate over
seas. The nexus between the city government and the com
mercial community of Barcelona is quite clearly illustrated
by the history of the consulates abroad.
We must examine the techniques and methods by which
the Barcelonan city council sought to maintain a viable
relationship with the Catalan merchants who, in their over
seas operations, assured the continued prosperity of the
city. An attempt will be made here to determine the his
torical source8 out of which the consulates abroad grew,
together with the dates and reasons for the foundations of
the major consulates in each locale will be determined.
The role which the consul ultramarino played in foreign
affairs and especially in the diplomatic relations
viii
conducted by Barcelona with other mercantile states must
also be explained. Prom this point we shall also be able
to investigate the purely commercial affairs of the consul
ates abroad, their role within the structure of inter
national Medieval commerce (using the term international in
its broadest"sense). That the consulates were useful in
serving the interests of the Catalan business community
abroad was, essentially, the only real reason for their con
tinued and lengthy existence, and it must be the historian's
task to describe their functions within the framework of
the needs and the problems of Medieval travelling merchants
who based themselves at the Catalan consulates abroad.
Pinally, an examination in some detail is necessary
concerning the operation of one of these consulates, using
it as an illustration of the forces which to a greater or
lesser extent operated in all of the hundreds of consulates
which the Catalans maintained overseas for more than three
hundred years. In this dissection of one consulate,
Palermo, Sicily, will provide a test case. The financial
affairs of this consulate, its administrative machinery,
its courts and judicial procedures, and its role in the
politics and commerce of the area in which it was situated
will come in for close scrutiny.
Despite the general interest which Catalans and
other Spaniards have shown in the institutional history of
ix
the city of Barcelona, no one, including the incomparable
Antonio de Capmany, has given serious attention to doing a
narrative and comparative study of the institutions of the
Catalan consulate abroad. To anyone who has spent time in
a foreign land, the consulate of Ms own nation becomes
most important in smoothing the many problems and vexations
which are associated, now as they were in the Middle Ages,
with prolonged residency or employment abroad. Even in
terms of that extraordinary and praiseworthy community of
sentiments and beliefs and practices which made Medieval
Europe a unique historical phenomenon, the Catalan merchant
still needed a place of refuge— a place to rest, meet
friends, enjoy the gossip recently arrived from Barcelona,
arrange business contacts, and find security in an age
still dominated by overlapping and often contradictory
feudal jurisdictions. The consulate abroad provided
exactly the sanctuary and meeting place that the traveller
and merchant overseas needed. In that Medieval environ
ment, it fulfilled the same kind of need that is met by the
modem system of national consulates abroad.
The consulate provided the merchant with useful
contacts and a place to learn, both from the consul himself
and from the older resident merchants, the tricks of
operating successfully in the foreign environment. As the
reader will see the consulate had the duty of assisting the
x
merchant and traveller in times of serious trouble, giving
him a safe refuge when there was civil upheaval, assuring
him of credentials and friendly advice of customs, looking
after his estate if he died alone of foreign soil, and
representing his interest against those of other national
groups who also might have consulates where he, the Catalan
merchant, was wont to operate.
If Capmany and the other historians of Catalonia
have not done the finished work as far as constructing a
full length narrative of the Catalan consulates overseas,
without their splendid pioneer work in uncovering and
recording the appropriate documents such work would be
impossible. Capmany, of course, is a man apart; the die-
i .
coverer of the rich antiquity and middle ages of the splen
did old city which is Barcelona. His Memories Histdricas.
published in 1792, represents nearly a lifetime of speciali
zation in the history of his native city. The scholarship
is still recognizable as impeccable, and his collections of
documents and appendices are invaluable in a project such
as this study of the Catalan consulates abroad.
The knowledge of these consul ados ultyanwri non ie
derived, of course, primarily from documentary materials,
and secondarily from the splendid pioneer work of such his
torians as Antonio de Capmany, Feran Soldevila, Bam6n
Men4ndez Fidal, Lopez de Meneses, and Antonio Bubio Lluch.
xi
Beginning with the 1792 edition of Capmany* a Memoriae
Hiat<5ricaB Sobre la Marina. Comercio v Arte de la Cfndad
de Barcelona there has been a continuous and constantly
developing interest in the historical development of the
commercial9 financial, and diplomatic institutions of the
city of Barcelona. Soldevila*s still standard Historia de
Catalunya has been of great value in developing an overall
view of the place of the consulates in the commercial aims
of the city council of Barcelona. It has also provided a
much needed explanation of the vital role which both the
monarchs of Aragon and the city magistrates of Barcelona
played in shaping the ultimate objectives of commercial
policy. Men£ndez Pidal's monographs on Spanish mercantile
history have been of great value, as have the studies by
Rubio Lluch on the institutions of Catalonia. The collec
tions of documents which apply to Barcelonan history assem
bled by Antonio Bofarull y Sans have proved most useful,
especially for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Since, however, there are few specialized studies
published concerning the oonsulados ultramarinos most of
material for this dissertation was assembled from the docu
mentary material in the Archivo Municipal de Barcelona.
The Archivo de la Corona de Aragon provided additional
material, particularly where the king of Aragon was
involved in dealings either with the merchants who resided
xii
abroad themselves or with the city government of Barcelona.
The Archivo de la Corona de Aragrfn contains the registers
of royal letters, and a multivolumed collection of royal
letters and patents recorded at full length.
The Archivo Municipal, of course, provided the
greater part of the relevant documents. This archive is an
excellent source of the study of medieval Catalan institu-
tional history. Collected here are the full records of the
Council of One Hundred of Barcelona, the governing body of
the city and of the city's commercial empire in Spain and
overseas. Here, also, are the records of the Consulado del
Mar, the famed and powerful merchants' guild which exer
cised such a powerful voice in the administration of the
mercantile affairs of the city, though as R. S. Smith has
pointed out in his fine study The Consulado del Mar. the
consulado might propose, but ultimately only the city coun
cil could dispose.
Of primary importance for this study were the
collections of letters written by the avuntamiento to the
kings of Aragon and to the many foreign kings and princes
with whom the city government dealt in directing the activ
ities of Catalan merchants and consuls abroad. Contained
in these collections are letters to the kings of Aragon,
Castile, Prance, Portugal, England, Naples, Sicily, Hungary,
Cyprus, Bugia, Tunis, Morroco, to the emperors of the East
xiii
and the West, to the sultans of Egypt and of Syria, to the
governing councils of the Italian republics, to the admir
als and generals of hostile maritime powers, and to the
grand master of Rhodes. Also included in these boxes and
bales of letters are those written by the city magistrates
to the many commercial consuls abroad, and these letters,
naturally, were of the greatest importance in understanding
the duties of the consuls abroad within the framework of
the consulate itself. They also helped develop a picture
of the role which these consuls played in international
commerce in the high middle ages. Often, too, these cartas
contained valuable information on customs duties and on the
administration of justice by the consul within his sphere
of jurisdiction.
The Municipal Archive also contains a large and
varied collection of decrees of the king of Aragon and of
the city government, registered and notarized. Two large
folio collections, The Red Book and The Green Book, contain
the decrees and privileges most relevant to a study of the
consulados ultr«™«Tinna The antiquity and veracity of
these two volumes is attested by a notation in the first
part of the Red Book to the effect that in 13^5 the aZtiatft-
miento charged its secretary, Raymundo Ferrer with the task
of confirming and correcting the privileges and decrees in
this book against whatever originals he could find. These
xiv
1
royal privilegea, statutes, municipal decrees, and city '
ordinances were carefully transcribed wherever possible
from the original. The original bindings for these books
have been lost, however, and they now exist as a disorgan
ized collection divided between sixteen different boxes.
Since an attempt has been made to organize them recently,
however, the documents which made up the old Bed and Green
books are now listed generally by box number and some
identifying phrase, as Caja I, consulado ultramarino.
Another useful documentary collection is the
Diversorum, comprising a series of royal and municipal
instruments and directives. The majority are copies, though
a few original documents remain on parchment. Included in
this collection are instructions to consuls and to mer
chants going abroad, and some letters of introduction for
merchants and travellers. Of equal interest is a collec
tion called the Notularum, a compendious miscellany of
letters from the magistrates, and instruments which illus
trate clearly the commercial and maritime policies of
Barcelona in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Much information was also gleaned from the Registers
of the City Council, whose pages contain many letters of
credence and introduction for the Qongnlaa
Also included are lengthy discussions, inserted among the
letters, on duties and other sources of revenue and on the
xv
administration of justice among merchants. There are also
reports and letters on the relations between the city coun
cil and the merchants' guild (Consulado del Mar). Inter
estingly, many of the letters and reports in this large
collection sure in the Catalon idiom. The first use of
Catalan for official city business seems to come around
1300.
Generally now referred to as Registers of the City
(or General) Council, the registers actually are titled in
many different ways. Some are called boIsas, some simply
libre, and some registre de concells. ordinacions v letres.
Variations and combinations of these words are also used.
Whatever the given name, they deal with the same kinds of
materials. The variety of titles apparently reflects no
more than the taste of the individual city secretaries who
wrote and collected the documents included in each register.
In every case the title was followed by the inclusive dates
of the documents contained in the volume, followed by the
name of the secretary and the armory or chest in wLioh it
could be found and to which it should be returned. The
oldest register we have, for example, reads thus: Bolsa de
concells, ordinacions, y letres, any MCCCI y MCCCIII,
Francesch Vila. These registers of letters close,
xvi
instructions, letters of credence and introduction and
inserted proceedings of the City Council form a nearly con
tinuous series from 1301 until the late eighteenth century
xvii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE......................................... ii
Chapter
I. THE ORIGINS OF THE CONSULADO ULTRAMARINO ... 1
II. THE OFFICE OF CONSUL ULTRAMARINO............ 62
III. THE CONSULATE OF THE CATALANS AT PALERMO ... 118
17. CONCLUSION..................................183
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................191
m u
CHAPTER I
THE ORIGINS OP THE CONSULAR) ULTRAMARINO
By the end of the thirteenth century the commercial
activities of the Catalans stretehed from Flanders to
Constantinople, and had penetrated to England, Scandinavia,
and even to Russia. The government at Barcelona early
regarded it as a public duty to provide facilities and
assistance for the many merchants and seamen Involved in
this vast overseas trade, and the result was the gradual
creation of a large number of consulados ultfaHnnw in
the principal states and territories in which Catalan mer
chants and seamen operated.
The first formal consulate abroad was that of
Alexandria. There, in 1252, the Catalans had established
an alfondle under the authority of a consul. The major
difficulty surrounding this slim reference is that it is
part of a lengthy letter from Jaime I to the papacy,
begging to be absolved from a crusading oath. Louis IX of
Prance had proposed that the Christian princes of Europe
bind themselves to retake the Holy Land and to avoid all
trade with the Moors. This letter is dated 1269, and by
1
then Jaime's Catalan subjects had effected substantial
commercial penetration of North Africa, King Jaime cer
tainly wished to retain these advantages in Africa, and the
tone of his letter to the pope indicates that he was seek
ing a means of proving his loyalty to Christendom without
having to force his Catalan subjects to withdraw from
Africa. He claimed, therefore, that the Catalans had had
a consulate at Alexandria since 1252 to protect merchants
and that this alfondic exempted the Catalans from the oath
of St. Louis, since relations with the Moors were demon
strably well established. Since the king was attempting to
build a strong case for good relations with the Moors on
the basis of previous good relations, this reference to a
consulate of Alexandria is somewhat questionable, though
its existence is certainly possible.^
Turning to more certain and more veracious testi
mony, the office of consul among the Catalan merchants
appears to date with greater certainty from an ordinance
of 1258 issued by Jaime, the Conqueror, for the better
^Perran Soldevila, HiBtoria de Catalunya (Barcelona,
1963), p* 321, Robert Brunschvig. ha kerberie prientale
aous lea hafsidee dee origines A la fin du 2* siScle
(Paris, 19*+0), pp. 32, 37. Charles IXifourq, "La Couronne
d'Aragon et les Hafsides au HII6 si&cle, 1299~1301,"
Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia. XXV (1952), 53“59.
2
regulation of a number of aBpects of Catalan commerce.
This document represents a significant step towards the
formation of the concept of the consulate abroad. All
residents of Barcelona and its environs were put under the
authority of a prohombre (called "consul" elsewhere in the
same document) when they boarded a Barcelonan vessel bound
3
for foreign ports. It is, unfortunately, difficult to
tell from the wording of the copies of this document just
what the authority of the consul meant and whether or not
it extended beyond the confines of the vessel when that
vessel reached a foreign port. The method of selecting the
consul and the terms of his authority are sufficiently
important to be worth quoting in full here.
Item, ordinamus quod in qualibet navi vel ligno
recedente de Ripparia Barchinone ordinentur et
eligantur ab homnibus in ipsa navi vel ligno
euntibus duo proceres secundum eorum noticiam et
legal!tatem, quorum ordinatione obligentur, tarn
dominus ipsius navis vel ligni quam marinarii,
quam me restores in eadem euntes, et omnes tenean-
tur stare et obedire ordinacioni dictorum duorurn
procerum. Qui duo proceres eligant alios viros
dicte navis, cum quorum consilio faciant et ordi-
nent omnia que ordinanda erunt in dicta navi; et
quicquid ordinatum fuerit per dietor septem, sit
2
Archivo Histdrico Municipal de Barcelona, Liber
Vert~ I, 222-226. All references to works contained in this
archive will be referred to as AHM followed by the identi
fying number or symbol of the document in question.
^L. Vert.. I, 225.
I f
ratum in omnibus atque firmum per omnes homines in
dicta navi euntes. In ligno vero, dicti duo pro
ceres eligant alios duos cum quorum consilio ordi-
nent omnia, que ordinanda erunt in dicto ligno.
Set eleccio dictorum duorum procerus fiat infra
quatuor dies vel octo ante recessum dicte navis
vel ligni a littore Barchinone, et quotquot homines
Barchinone invenerint in aliquibus partibus tarn
christianorum quam sarracenorum, teneantur stare
et obedire ordinacioni et consilio dictorum septem,
vel dictorum quatuor. Quicquid vero dicti electi
fecerint vel ordinaverint, facient et ordinent ex
parte domini regie, et salva sua jurisdictione, et
ex parte Consilii proborum Bipparie Barchimome. Si
vero dicti duo electi in navibus recesserint a loco
in quo pervenerint cum ipsa navi, in eorum recessu
eligant alios duos cum consilio dictorum quinque
consiliariorum qui ob tine ant in omnibus vices auas,
et duo electi in lignia eligant alios duos cum
consilio dictorum duorum consiliariorum, et si duo
electi a dictis duobus recesserint, eligant alios
duos, et sic per ordinem subsequantur; et quicquid
per dictos electos actum fuerit vel ordinatum,
ratum ab aliis in omnibus habeatur; et hoc precipimus
de mandato domini regis, et in virtute sacramenti.
One of the first and most obviously significant
aspects of this new dispensation is that it is a consider
able departure from the slightly older institution of the
sedentary consulado in the merchant’s home city, that cor
porate body of merchants (and, in the case of Barcelona, of
the local nobility) which had charge of the administration
of the city’s commercial machinery, courts, and physical
5
facilities such as the port, the wharves, and the Ionia.
Vert.. I, 225.
c
•'The best recent studies of the Spanish consulados
are all by E. S. Smith, and include the Spanish (auild Mer
chant : A History of the Consulado. 1250-1700 (BarhamT!
The consul mentioned in Jaime's cJdula is an official whose
jurisdiction in commercial affairs extended beyond the cus
tomary boundaries of the consulado1s officials# The author
ity of the Barcelonan consular officials simply could not
be enforced in the many ports to which Catalan merchants
were by then travelling. In addition, ruinous competition
between rival Barcelonan merchants, as well as injurious
and unscrupulous business practices had to be curbed.^ It
is clear that similar situations then obtained in the other
19^0) and "El Consulado del Mar en Tortosa y Tarragona"
Re vista Jurldica de Catalunva. XL (193*0 > 26-29. One of
the more complicated problems in Medieval Catalan commercial
history is the overlapping jurisdictions of the Municipal
Council, the Consulado del Mar, and the consulates overseas.
The Consulado del Mar normally handled the business affairB
of the city, and during the fourteenth century, virtually
dominated the municipal council as well, since it had its
own courts and revenues. Occasionally, as in the case of
the Balearic Isles, the king insisted that overseas terri
tories be incorporated directly into the realm, and then
the new territories were allowed to form consuladoa del
of their own, though these new consulados were tied closely
to the parent consulado at Barcelona. rKese consulados or
legal associations of merchants with courtd and revenues
must not be confused with the overseas consulates which the
Catalans established during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries•
^A set of dishonest weights was an essential part
of Catalan merchants' dunnage during this period, though
Jaime I made frequent attempts to curb the most noxious
practices of his subjects, knowing better than they the
often perilous state of his diplomatic ventures. See AHM,
L. Vert■. I, 21*+; AHM, L. Vert.. I, 335. Catalan business
practice may be gleaned from the laws designed to prevent
the worst of them. See the 1937 edition of Antonio de
Capmany y de Montpalau, Antic Comerc de Barcelona
(Barcelona, 1937).
merchant communities fronting the Mediterranean, and by
1250 we find that the Genoese had hit upon the idea of
travelling officials to accompany merchants and to check on
7
merchant communities abroad.
Although it is not known precisely when the Genoese
determined upon shipboard consuls, the system was in opera
tion by the late 1^+0*s, and possibly much earlier. These
commercial representatives of the republic appear to have
been limited in their authority to the ship itself, and
were given disciplinary and judicial powers over the mem
bers of the crew, though they apparently were not to inter
fere in the operation of the ship any more than was legally
necessary to maintain order and good relations with the
8
ports the ship visited. By the 1260*s there is further
evidence that the Genoese had discovered that the shipboard
consul was not a fully effective method of controlling and
protecting the city*s merchants abroad, and so the republic
also finally established commercial consulates overseas.
The first was located in the south of Spain, at Almeria,
and the second in Syria, at Tyre. There is evidence that
the Genoese had both consulates in operation by the latter
7
Antonio de Capmany y de Montpalau, Memoriae
Hietoricas sobre la Marina. Comercio v Artea de la Antigua
CiSad d. fctro.long fBajcaWT T^aTT . ---
Q
°Capmany, Memoriaa Hiatoricaa. I, 183.
half of 1267, for they are mentioned in documents from the
9
Catalan consulate at Alexandria.
It Is also clear that the Venetians by this time had
also established consulates abroad. A consul at
Constantinople, operating under the title of baiulo. and
a consul at Naples seem to have been the first Venetian
consuls overseas.^ It does not appear, however, that
these Italian consulates were as completely integrated into
the total economic policy of the respective states as were
those of the Catalans.
The Catalans, with a flair for organization which
at times rose almost to a mania, immediately grasped the
implications of the Genoese shipboard consuls and expanded
and formalized this new institution. The city government
of Barcelona soon brought this borrowed consular system
under its control, and imposed upon these newly created
officials their nascent conceptions of mercantile democracy.
The two elected leaders were hedged in their authority by
the consent of the assembled members of the ship's crew and
mercantile company, though it is clear that there was little
voice allotted to the ship's company in matters regarding
9
Archivo Histdrico Municipal, Registero de General
Consilio, 53 verso. This collection will hereafter be
referred to as AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., followed by an iden
tifying folio number.
^Capmany, Memoriaa Hiatorloas. I, 367.
formulation of policy and regulations. The two leaders
were bound to select other able men to help them in their
tasks, and the ship's company was expected to obey unques-
tioningly the dictates of the two procures. Jaime's orfdula
shows that these officials were not considered, as yet, an
11
independent legal of institutional force. They repre
sented, like any other civil officer, the authority of the
conaelleres of the city government of Barcelona, and it is
to be surmised that their policies concerning commercial
matters, as well as their administration of justice, would
conform to the general rules followed by the Consulado del
Mar in Barcelona and by the city government. Interestingly,
a provision was^included in this letter of Jaime's by which
the authority of these shipboard officers could be trans
mitted if they were unable to complete the task. They sim
ply appointed, with the consensus of the ship's remaining
12
members, new officials to carry on their duties. This
attention to the details of the transmission of authority
indicates that these procures were either already con
sidered as an integral part of the commercial picture
abroad, or else that Jaime wished for them to be so
regarded.
n AHM, L. Vert.. 222-226
12AHM, L. Vert.. 223.
The exact duties, obligations, and remunerations of
these new officers of commerce are not made clear in this
document hut they clearly had the power to enforce (in
theory, at least) the dictates which early in the voyage
were laid down for the governance of the ship’s company.
How the consul implemented his authority is far from clear,
as is the question of how closely he was hound to observe
the rules of mercantile law and of justice prescribed by
the home government, but we may assume, probably, that at
least the provisions of the Usatges were supposed to guide
both his policy and his administration of the mercantile
code. Whether or not the officials described by Jaime's
decree had other legal powers, as in the realm of criminal
jurisdiction, is not known. J
One of the most interesting and difficult problems
for this period concerns the transition of these early
examples of consular officials from shipboard functionaries
elected from the traveling company to the omnicompetent and
more powerful resident consuls abroad, with official creden
tials from Barcelona, wide powers to administer justice in
both civil and criminal suits, and often a paid staff.
^Federico Maspons I inglasell, El dret Catalkt
La Seva G*neai. La Seva Batruetura* Lea Saves Carao^eris-
tiquaa (Barcelona. 195*40. p p . 17-19. F. Yalls-Taberaer,
Novea recerques sobre els Usatges de Barcelona,** EstudiB
Universitarls C^t^i^na. XX (1935), 69“80.
10
There has, as yet, been no attempt at an explanation of
this change, though we know that the official outlined in
Jaime the Conqueror’s decretal had apparently outlived his
usefulness within some eight years, for in 1266 we find the
more familiar office of the Consul Ultramarino outlined in
llf
a notice to the Conselleres of Barcelona. The probable
explanation of the change is twofold. First, Jaime had
concluded a treaty of friendship, peace, and mutual aid
with the Sultan of Egypt in 1250, which included specific
clauses covering the conduct of trade between the two
15
areas. The records indicate, however, that within two
years of this treaty, Jaime was already exasperated with
the poor faith of the Turks.^ The Turks doubtless felt
11+AHM, L. Vert.. 228.
1^Francisco de Bofarull y Sans, "Antigua Marina
Catalana," Memoriae de Buenas Letras de Barcelona. VII
(1901), l-iu:
^Pedro Aguado Bleye, Manual de Historia de Espana
(Madrid, 1958), pp. 928-929. Commenting on this treaty
Aguado Bleye says:
"De alii se trafan algoddn en rarna e hilado, lana
de sombreros, porcelana, colmillos de elefante y muchas
especias, produciadas lejos, como pimienta, canela, cominos,
y los mas variadoas g^neros de. drogueria . . . regietrados
para la percepcidn de los derechos de aduana. Cuando los
reyes de Aragon, en cumplimiento de una bula de Gregorio I
que condenaba las relaciones con el SlodAn, prohibleron el
comercio con Egipto, rfste no se interrumpio. El contra
bands era tan intenso que las multas con que se castigaba
se convirtieron en un impuesto normal."
the same way about Jaime. The adoption of the system of
two elected for each vessel, begun in 1258, must have been
a move to bring some sort of stability to the difficult but
important trade between the Catalans and the Africans. The
powers of these officials, however, were not sufficient to
protect the ships against piracy, petty larceny while in
port, exorbitant customs duties, and similar malpractices.
Therefore, it must have become clear that these shipboard
officials, an idea borrowed from the Genoese, simply could
not effectively cope with the exigencies of the Moorish
17
trade. It was necessary to devise a more effective means
of checking the tendencies towards larceny possessed in
such splendid degree by most medieval Catalan merchants,
while at the same time protecting them against the Moors
and the Moors against them. It must also be noted that the
lack of permanent diplomatic personnel in foreign countries,
coupled with the instability of treaties and the shifts of
alliances between states were probably additional factors
leading the Catalans quickly to discard the elected ship
board consular officers in favor of a more permanent and
more effective system of representation abroad, and it is
observable that, in fact, an increasingly large diplomatic
role was assigned to the consular agents resident in
^Nicolau d’Olwer, L'Expansi<5, Chapters I, II, U.
See also Capmany, Memoriae Historicas. I, 235-239, I, 2^8.
foreign countries. As Garrett Mattingly has pointed out,
it was not until the fifteenth century that the Italian
city states developed the institution of the president
18
ambassador abroad, though it can be argued that the
Catalans used their consuls abroad for very similar pur-
19
poses. We find, in fact, that the next major step in the
development of’ the consulado ulty^marino comes in 1263,
when Jaime I appointed the redoubtable merchant, William of
Moncada, scion of the most famous medieval Catalan commer
cial family, as consul resident abroad for two years, his
term to be served in Alexandria until 1265. His title was
chief of the Alfdndico de Alexandria, and he was given full
civil and criminal jurisdiction to deal with citizens of
the king's territories who were residing at that time in
Alexandria, though there are no further records concerning
his administration of mercantile law, his administration of
the physical properties belonging to the Catalans, or the
methods by which he was empowered to enforce his
18
Garrett Mattingly, Benaiseance Diplomacy (London,
1955)» pp. 95-110.
0f -the important functions of the resident
consulate living abroad was his diplomatic function. We
have seen that the consul aboard ship was useful in smooth
ing the paths of merchants abroad, and we shall see, in the
case of Moncada that he was in fact credited as Jaime I*s
nuncio to the court of the Sultan, though he was also the
consular officer for Catalan merchants.
13
20
decisions. Jaime further required In a public notioe
that all of his subjects who had any business in Alexandria
were to obey Moncada in all matters, whether civil or mili
tary, though what military action might have been required
is not clear, Moncada was to be regarded as the king's
nuncio in that area for the two years of his commission,
and any slight against him or his dignity was to be con
strued as a slight against Jaime himself. Moncada was
instructed personally by the king to investigate the advis
ability of expanding the storehouses and, quarters then
belonging to his subjects in Alexandria. His recommenda
tions probably were for expansion if the Muslims allowed,
because within ten years the structures had been enlarged
21
and beautified. With Moncada's appointment, then, it is
clear that Jaime had determined to take effective steps in
two directions: to make as safe as possible the physical
and legal situation of the Catalans and others resident
abroad in terms of the commercial agreements concluded in
20Bofarull y Sans, Antigua Marina, pp. 7-8. See
also Ferran Soldevila, Historia de Catalunya (Barcelona,
1963), P. 276. For an overview of Spanish participation in
African affairs for this period, see Andres Cimenez Soler,
"Caballeros espanoles en Africa y africanos en Espana,"
Bevue Hispanicrue* XII (1905), I*fr9“l5l. See also Faustino
Cazulla. Jaime“ T de Arafdn y los Estados Masulmanes
(Barcelona, 1919)> pp. 32, 37,
21Amad£ Lopez de Meneses, "Los Consulados Catalanes
de Alejandria y Damasco en el reinado de Pedro el Cere-
monioso." Estudioe de Edad Media en la Corona de Aragdn.
VI (195^),'"135=135:---- ---- --- -----
the 12*fOfa and 1250*a, and to make sure that the government
in Spain kept a firm hand on the activities of its merchants
resident abroad.
The critical document in the formation of the
Medieval Catalan system of foreign commercial consulates ia
the royal privilege granted by Jaime the Conqueror to the
municipal council of the city of Barcelona, August 16,
22
1266. In his capacity as king of Aragon, Mallorca,
Valencia, and count of Barcelona and Urgell he granted to
the city council and the prohombres of Barcelona full
authority to elect consuls on a yearly basis to serve
overseas in the ports where Catalan merchants were wont to
trade and where the merchants, by their own initiative, had
already established commercial facilities to serve their
23
needs. The powers and jurisdiction given to the new
elected officers of the city government were much more
specifically enumerated than in the document of 1258. The
document tells us that the consuls
. . . habeant plenam jurisdiccionem ordinandi,
gubemendi, compellendi, ministrandi, puniendi
et omnia alia faciendi super omnes personas de
terris nostris ad ipsas partes ultramarinas
navigantes, et in ipsa terra residentiam
facientes, et. super omnes naves et alia ligna
22AHM, I. Vert.. I, 228.
23ahM, L. Vert.. I, 228.
de terris nostria illuc navigancia, sive portum
faciencia, et super res earumdem personarum que
illuc fuerint, tam in terra quasi in marem sicut
habent in illis partibus consulee de allis pro-
vinciis ibi positi set constituti super personas
et navigia_et alias res hominuxn earum pro-
vinciarum.^
The new consul was to have the power to govern, to hear
complaints, to dispense justice, and to enforce his
decisions by any means at his command. The consuls were
also to have full authority over all of the residents of
>
Jaime's territories who ventured abroad on any sort of
business. This continues the tradition of the ordinance of
1258 and of the appointment of Moncada in 126^f, by which
the elected consul was chief officer of all the king's
subjects overseas or even aboard ship. This, however,
broke with the long Aragonese and Catalan tradition of
strong local autonomy and regionalism which normally would
have made such blanket authority highly unpopular. It was
no part of the eastern Spanish tradition to acknowledge the
authority of someone not immediately from one's own
25
region. It is also Important to note that the new con
suls were to have full authority over both the established
merchants residing abroad as well as over all other citi
zens, regardless of their class, occupation, or reason for
^AHM, L. Vert.. I, 228.
2^AHM, L. Vert.. I, 228.
travelling abroad, who found themselves in the consul’s
26
territory of jurisdiction.
As the document of 1266 indicates, the consuls were
to serve for one year, with the help of vice-consuls, also
elected by a majority vote of the municipal council of
Barcelona. If for any reason the consul could not serve
out his full term, the vice-consul was to have full powers
to complete the term of office as consul and to perform the
27
same duties as the regular consul. The city council
apparently had free choice in naming consuls abroad, but it
may be inferred that the choice ultimately had to meet the
approval of the sovereign, and there existed examples later
28
of conflict over the appointment of a consul.
The maritime code whose basic provisions were laid
down during the middle years of Jaime's reign is the Llibre
del Consolat de Mar. Soldevila feels that it is largely a
redaction of older codes which have disappeared. This is
the first major maritime code in the Western Mediterranean
area, and was subsequently translated into a variety of
languages, including Italian. The importance of this law
code for Catalan commerce and for the concept of the con
sulates abroad as full representatives of both the commer
cial community and all other travellers is explained more
thoroughly in P. Valls-Taberner'0 preface to Els Hostres
Classics (Barcelona, 1930)* 12-1*+• His assumption is
that the development of a purely secular and even reasonably
pragmatic law code was the first major step towards making
the authority of the consuls abroad applicable to all the
king's citizens, since it so clearly cut across other more
feudal and regionalistic lines.
27AHM, L. Vert.. I, 228.
28
As, for example, the long drawn conflict between
the city council and Alfonso 7, el Magnanimo, concerning the
The government of the city at Barcelona gave the
consuls the powers mentioned above, but it reserved to
itself the right of punishment, with fines and imprisonment
if necessary, for the mismanagement of consular affairs,
graft, corruption, or a miscarriage of justice,
. . . posaint etiam predicti consulsa, a consillariis
et probis homlnlbus electi, imponere et ponere penam
predictis aliis quos ipsi electi eligent, sub qua
pena teneantur recipere dictum consulatum, et tenere
et regere ip sum usque in fine emporis, quod eis ab
ipsig electoribus ab dictum regimen fuerit prefini-
The vice-consul was under an equal compulsion to govern by
the straight and narrow.
Item, damus plenum posse et jurisdiccionem predictis
consillariis et probis hominibus Barchinone puniendi
secundum eorum arbitrium oonsules supradictos ab eis
electos, et illos eciam quos ipsi consules elegerint
si deliquerint quoquomodo.30
The differences between Jaime*s appointment of
Moncada and this ordinance three years later are interesting
filling of the vacancy in the consulate of Naples between
1^51 and lM-53* The king supported his own candidate
Bernardo Gancelm against the choice of the council and the
consulado. Bartolomd Llobera. The problem was resolved by
the death of both candidates. See Archivo Historico
Municipal, Lletres Closes, Folio 31 verso, hereafter
referred to as AHM, Lletr. Clos.
2?AHM, L. Vert.. I, 228.
30AHM, L. Vert.. I, 228.
because they point to the development of a wider conception!
of the consul's role. The consul was to be elected by
those who theoretically knew commercial affairs best. He
was no longer the king's nuncio, and his duties became more
clearly defined. The new dispensation would apply to any
area in which the Consejo Municipal de Barcelona saw fit to
establish an alfondic. It would not apply simply to places
of specific diplomatic interest to the monarch. Clearly,
by 1266 there was a permanent system for representation
against the uncertainties of foreign living while at the
same time controlling these adventurous spirits.
The provisions of the cedula of 1266 were subse
quently confirmed, amplified, and explained by another
royal cedula for the year 1268. In January of 1268, the
king sent again to the sultan of Egypt to renegotiate a
commercial treaty of 1260. For this expedition he selected
Bernardo de Moledinis and Bernardo de Plano, both of them
burghers of the city of Montpellier, to serve as hie envoys
to the court at Alexandria. They were to negotiate over
31Capmany, Memoriae Histdricas. I, 183.
32lrchivo de la Corona de Aragon, Begister 15,
76 verso. All materials from this archive will hereafter
be referred to as ACA followed either by a register number
or by Letras Beales and an identifying number.
Ferran Soldevila indicates that the expeditions of
both Moncada and of the two Baxnardoes of Montpellier were
the foundations of the important commercial treaty of 1271,
customs duties and over the rights and privileges accorded
to the subjects of Jaime. What is more interesting is the
provision of this cddula concerning the role of these two
envoys in electing a consul to govern the Ionia and alfondio
of Alexandria, as well aB to supervise the king's subjects
33
in that port. One would surmise that this power had
definitely been granted to the city government of Barcelona
by the king's cddula of 1266, yet we find that the king, in
1268, gave these two burghers the power to conduct his
diplomatic mission and to investigate the consulate of the
the first major commercial treaty between the Spanish and
the Moors. Jaime I and Al-Munstansir signed the final
draft of the treaty January 17, 1271. This treaty marked
the acceptance of the part of the Moorish government at
Alexandria of the inevitable and inescapable fact of the
penetration of Catalan merchants into North Africa. The
treaty was renegotiated in 1276, with better terms for
the Spanish merchants, especially vis-A-vis a large
reduction in customs duties. Soldevila, Hiatoria de
Catalunva. p. 321; see also Soldevila, Jaime I. pp. 72-73*
33
ACA, Register 15, 76 verso. It is clear from
this document that a considerable number of the king's
Catalan subjects were by this time living in North Africa.
We have seen how the first consulate in Alexandria was
established with the mission of Moncada in 126*+•
Gimenez Soler, in his article "Caballeros espaholes en
Africa y africanos in Espaha," Revue Hiauaniaue. XIII,
indicates that the later half of this decade witnessed a
remarkable outflowing of Catalan merchants to North African
cities, especially since the consulate of Alexandria
served to give them some small measure of protection and
representation. See also J. Alemany, Milioias oristianas
al aervicio de los sultanes wusulmanes de JusAirreh
(Zaragoza, 190*+), pp. 133“169*
Catalans at Alexandria, governing it as their judgement
indicated. This vas to be done by the device of appointing
an interim consul themselves, or serving in such a capaoity
2b
while conducting their diplomatic mission.
In language very similar to that used in 1263 and
1266, Jaime conferred upon his two nuncios
.. . licenciam et plenum posse imponendi penam et
penas super homines nostros qui in navi vestra
ibunt et super illos similiter qui in partibus
Alexandria fuerint dum vos in dicta missatgeria
fueritis seu steteritis postquam de terra nostra
recederitis, in eundo scilicet in dictum viaticum,
et stando ac redeundo, prout vobis^de jure visum
fuerit et ipsis etiam compellere.3?
Their office was to represent a hybrid of the consular
office proposed for all ships in 1258 and the more sophisti
cated consul abroad of 1263 and 1266. Jaime granted them
power to compel obedience to their authority and to levy
fines and punishments at their discretion, both aboard ship
and when in Alexandria, further charging all of the mer
chants of Alexandria to cooperate to the fullest extent of
their ability. They were, in fact, to act the role of
consuls until they had elected, from amongst the resident
merchants of Alexandria, a consul to manage the affairs of
the lon.1a and alfondic of the Catalans on a more permanent
^ACA, Register 15, 76 verso.
■^ACA, Register 15, 76 verso.
basis. Jaime specifically states that he conceded to them
power to govern the alfondic and the lon.1 a in the absence
of a permanent consul.^
It would be expected from the document of 1266
granting this right of election to the Barcelona city coun
cil that Jaime could not authorize the election of consuls
in foreign ports, or give the two envoys from Montpellier
such wide jurisdiction and discretionary powers in the
interim between their arrival and such election. In fact,
Jaime could be accused of violating the privilege granted
the Catalans on two counts, for he not only authorized the
two Bernardos to "elect" consuls in Alexandria, a clear
violation of the privilege of 1266 which had granted that
right to the city government of Barcelona, but further
gives them the specific authorization to fulfill the func
tion of consuls until that election has been accomplished,
thus in effect appointing them interim consuls.
It is difficult to determine whether or not the
royal o^dula of 1266 granted the Barcelona city oouncil the
3 ACA, Register 15, 76 verso. Interestingly, we
have no way of knowing why there had been no election to
the consulate which must have been vacated by Moncada. The
c^dula granting this power to the government of Barcelona
had been in effect for two years, and we unfortunately have
no records as to whether the power to elect consuls overseas
had been exercised before 1268 in regards to Alexandria or
not. We also do not know if the merchants in Alexandria had
taken any effective steps to govern their consulate or not.
exclusive right of electing consuls overseas, but in this
particular instance, it can be argued that Jaime did violate
the privilege he had granted, since the merchant community
"3 7 *
in Alexandria was almost entirely Catalan. The wording
of the letter of c^dula concerning the Alexandrian mission,
however, indicates that Jaime did not feel himself obligated
to consult the councillors of Barcelona first.
That the city government of Barcelona was piqued by
Jaime's dismissal of their authority in consular meetings
is difficult to doubt, for two years later it was found that
a royal c^dula from Tarragona, dated August 6, 1268, con
ceded again to the government of Barcelona the right to
elect and appoint consuls abroad. This document, shorter
and more concise than that of 1266, also amplifies and
further explains how this privilege was to be exercised and
to what areas it would extend.
Again, a blanket license for the present and for the
future was granted to the gentlemen merchants who composed
3?AHM, L. Vert.. 228. The wording of the c^dula of
1266 makes it clear that the Barcelona city council was to
have charge over all Catalan merchants abroad, as well as
over the king's other voyaging subjects, but the document
does not specifically state that the king himself cannot
elect consuls abroad. Since the other commercial matters,
however the municipal council had virtual autonomy in
regards to Catalans, and since the majority of merchants in
Alexandria were Catalan, precedents certainly existed for
assuming that the c^dula of 1266 did in fact confer exclu
sive authority for overseas consulates upon the Barcelonans.
a majority in the city council to elect or appoint overseas
consuls in all countries and territories in which Catalan
merchants were wont to trade, E*urther, they were empowered
to continue the practice of electing consuls for trading
vessels bound for foreign ports. This may be regarded as a
continuation of the office of consul aboard ship mentioned
already in 1258, though with the significant distinction
that in 1268 there were also to be consuls resident abroad,
whose authority was more clearly defined and whose powers
38
were far greater than those of the shipboard consul.
The Genoese conception of the shipboard consul
first utilized by the Catalans in the 1250*s had by the
late 1260's evolved into a system which employed two sets
of officials, the consul aboard ships and the resident con
sul abroad with broader and better defined powers. How
long these two sets of officials continued to function side
by side in a complementaiy manner we do not know, but there
does not seem to be any documentation which would point to
a lengthy survival of the consul aboard ship as a viable
institution, for by 1282 we find that the shipboard consul
is no longer mentioned, and certainly does not crop up in
39
any later documents.
ACA, Register 15, 76 verso.
39ahm, L. Verm.. II, 92-93* and Diversorum II, llM—
115. This document concerning the grievance of certain
An important provision of this cddula of 1268 was
its insistence that the work of the resident consul abroad
was extremely important to the prosperity of Catalonia, and
that therefore much care and deliberation should be spent
on the selection of candidates for this new high office.
All subjects of the Corona de Aragon whose maturity, experi
ence, and business acumen fitted them for this kind of posi
tion were to be considered as eligible. Regional, economic,
and social considerations were not to figure in the selec
tion of a qualified candidate for a consular post, though
this stipulation was doubtless more theoretical than real,
for we know that the consular posts generally were divided
between the members of the prominent merchant families.
Sevillian merchants is the earliest which contains no men
tion of consuls aboard ships, though it mentions twice the
role of the elected consules t.r^mftrinos.
WACA, Register 15, 76 verso. No adequate scholarly
accounts exist explaining the administrative procedures
involved in foreign relations during this period for Aragon
and more especially for Catalonia. Capmany, Memoriae
Histdricas. I, 366 ff., indicates that Jaime was merely
following the advanced lead of Barcelona's municipal govern
ment, which had as early as the 1220's opened wide a variety
of important offices to all classes of the city who held
even minimal amounts of real property. The experiment had
apparently proved so successful that the Council of One
Hundred had been opened to all citizens from its inception
in 12l*9, though the name is something of a misnomer. The
counoil soon consisted of over two hundred members, elected
from the nobility, the wealthy merchants, and even the
artisan class.
Having discussed to this point the origins of the
office of the consul ultramarinos and the transition from
the shipboard consuls to the resident consuls abroad, it is
necessary now to investigate the dates and circumstances
of the foundation of the major consulates overseas. It
would be a boon if it were possible to possess as much
information concerning the foundation of the major consu
lates themselves as is obtainable for those first years, in
the 1250*b and 1260*8 when the conception of the office of
the consul was gradually being developed. Unfortunately,
the Archivo Municipal de Barcelona contains many lapses
concerning the dates of foundation of many consulates, but
enough are still preserved in the ca.ias of the consulados
that a fairly accurate picture can be drawn for much of the
Mediterranean area. It is certain that the c^dula of
Jaime I, dated 1268, gave a great impetus to the Council of
One Hundred of Barcelona to name consuls overseas. It is
entirely natural, therefore, that the city government pro
ceeded, as quickly as possible, to name consuls abroad for
those areas where there were already especially heavy con
centrations of Catalan merchants, as in Greece, Syria,
Egypt, Andalucia, and the coast of North Africa.
As has already been seen probably only Genoa and
Venice and the city of Barcelona had developed, at this
early date, any system of regular representation abroad for
merchants, and though it is known that the Genoese pioneered
in developing the concept of the shipboard consul, the
Catalans were close behind, ready as ever to seise promptly
a viable idea, custom, or institution, fy the time that
Moncada set out for Alexandria in 126*+, as nuncio for
Jaime I of Aragon, there already existed at least the
nucleus of a consulate. Therefore, it is difficult to agree
with Capmany and others that the Catalan powers to nominate
and control consuls abroad were only theoretical at this
early date, for Moncada's instructions quite definitely con
tain a reference to the already existent alfondio. and his
powers to govern it were already remarkably similar to those
granted to the consules ultrAmmHn^g by Jaime's c^dulas of
1266 and 1268. It is still possible, however, to recognize
that the Genoese actually established the first viable and
formal consulates abroad, for it is known that in 1267, the
republic promulgated an ordinance for the better regulation
of commerce abroad in which the first two consuls general
were nominated, and specifically referred to by that title.
The two consuls were to govern the Genoese communities at
Ceuta and at Tyre, two areas in which Catalan merchants had
already made heavy commercial inroads, but where they had
not yet established either consulates or fully-equipped
— 1
alfondics. The Genoese here attempted an experiment which
the Catalans were not often to imitate, for Ceuta was made
the chief consulate for all of Andalucia, while Tyre was
made the first consulate of the vast area of Syria. It is
not certain how far this intended hegemony was meant to
extend, but the Catalans often, in the years to come, found
that it was not possible to establish this kind of primacy
of one consulate over another, both because of the jealousies
of the respective consuls and because of the intensively
regionalistic attitudes of the transplanted merchants, who,
when overseas, fought for "their territory" with the same
zeal which Catalans always managed to exhibit against
b2
Aragonese or Valencians.
As an interesting sidelight on the origin of the
consulates, one may be sure that these useful institutions
did not long remain the exclusive property of the Genoese
or of the Barcelonans. By the end of the thirteenth cen
tury, many of the more important commercial cities of the
Lt
Foglietta, Historia Genuensium (Genoa, 1585), V,
96 ff. See also Capmany. Memoriae Historicas. I, 37^.
Only in two areas did the Catalans attempt to
establish consulates which were to have control over other
consulates, in Sicily and in the short-lived experiment of
the huge and unwieldy consulate of Damascus, which at first
included Syria, Armenia, Lebanon, and several adjacent .
islands. Catalan merchants abroad were intensely competi
tive, even among themselves, and were seldom willing to
relinquish the slightest jot of their autonomy and freedom
of action, though in the case of Sicily, the intimate con
nection between the crowns of Sicily and Aragon created a
political and economic climate which made this Insistence
upon autonomy impossible as well as basically unnecessary.
28"
western Mediterranean basin had established consulates of
their own. By 1278 the city council of Narbonne had estab
lished consulates on several foreign cities and was becom-
ing the largest commercial city of the Languedoc. These
first commercial consuls were probably imitations of the
consuls of the Genoese and Catalans with whom the Narbonneee
merchants came into such close contact. Their authority
extended to both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the
m ,
southern French merchants resident in Pisa. Capmany
infers from this, probably correctly, that if the Narbonneae
consulates were thus closely modeled upon those of Genoa
and of Barcelona, then both maritime cities undoubtedly kept
commercial consulates in France, though in the case of the
Catalans there is little direct evidence of this until the
end of the thirteenth century.
ifO
•Mean Vaisset and Charles D^vie, Histolre generale
de Languedoc (5 vole.; Paris, 1730-17*+5), tl, 2?.
i.i,
Vaisset and Devie, II, 27-28. The passage men
tioned reads: "La bonne intelligence ayant r^tablie
entre ces deux vllles; les marc hands de Narbonne qui
trafiquoient & Pise y £lurent en 1278 un consul qui auroit
sur eux la jurisdiction civile, et criminelle. Ils
l*4tablirent d 1*instar dee consuls de G&nois et dee
Catalans."
LX
'Capmany, Memorlas Hist6ricas. I, 3r+“375. Capmany
agrees that the stimulus to the establishment of consuls by
other nations, especially the French cities probably came
as a result of the foundation of new Catalan consulates
overseas, though the evidence for the dates of foundation
of most of the Catalan consulates in France is extremely
circumstantial and sometimes patently false.
29
Although there are indications that a consulate
existed in the important trading area of North Africa as
early as 12&f, the first conclusive evidence for the exis
tence and strength of a consulate complete with elected con
sul comes from a letter of 1272, written by the magistrates
of the city of Barcelona to the merchants of Egypt, wherever
situated, informing them of the election of a new consul to
govern the consulate of Alexandria, and asking the merchants
to obey him in all matters. The new consul, Pietro
Guillelmi, a resident of the city of Alexandria, was to take
over the office and duties of consul of all the Catalans in
Alexandria, to be assisted in his office by Bernardo de
1 + 7
Curtail and Amaldo de Marina. In addition, the
conselleres of Barcelona insisted that there were to be no
rival consulates established in the area of Alexandria by
other Catalans operating without the authorization of the
municipal officers of Barcelona. The new consul was also
to be supported in his work by duties lawfully assigned to
the legitimate consul. He was also to employ these revenues
to sustain himself personally and to help maintain the
^Capmany, Col. Dip., number 25. This document
existed in the archives of the city of Barcelona in
Capmany's time, but no one has been able to find it since.
Therefore, reliance in this instance must be placed upon
Capmany as an exclusive source.
^Capmany, Col. Dip., number 25.
bQ
facilities of the Ion,1a. Hie term of duty was officially
to begin when he presented his credentials to the merchant
community at Alexandria, and from that point on his author-
ity was absolute, over both the resident merchant community
and over those who sailed through his port. They were to
stand by him, offer him aid and advice and in no way and by
no word to act against him during his tour of duty. This
letter is especially interesting in that it is the first
letter addressed specifically to a merchant community by the
city fathers of Barcelona, acting under their mandate to
elect consuls for overseas offices.
Though we shall have occasion to examine in some
what greater detail the operation of the consulates in
North Africa later in this work, it is worth noting that
by 1281 the institution of the African consulate had become
firmly established. In that same year the admiral of
1+8
Capmany, Col. Dip., number 25. "Concessimus
etiam eidem consul!, quod pro missionibus quas faciet circa
consul a turn praedictum, habeat ab omnibus mercatoribus
oatalanis qui in praedictis partibus expedient se, certam
quantitatem pecuniae pro centanario bisanciorum, prout ejus
discretion! videbitur expedire.”
^Capmany, Col. Dip., number 25. "... vobis
onmlbus Catalan!s in praedictis partibus Alexandria navigan-
tibus et existentibus ex parte domlni regia, quod dicto
Petro Guillalmi et illi quern loco sui substituet, attendatis
at obediatls tanquam consuli vestro, et contra praadicta
aliquo modo non veniatis. Et ut praedictis fides panior
habeatur, praesentes litteras sigilli nostri munimine
fecimus roborari."
Aragon, Don Conr&do de Lonza, sailed with his forces
against the usurping king of Tunis for the purpose of
re-establishing the legitimate sovereign, Ibn-Yusuf, upon
his lost throne. The aragonese fleet succeeded in dividing
its opposition, much in the manner of Nelson's "crossing of
the T," and thereby succeeded in its objectives. The resul
tant treaty with Ibn-Yusuf contained, as an important pro
vision, the right of the Catalans to maintain their "cus
tomary" consulate in Alexandria, along with its buildings
50
and other properties.
/
Of possibly greater historical significance, how
ever, are the two chapters of this same treaty which pro
vide for Catalan consuls to reside at the court at Tunis and
at Bugia. These consuls could be regarded in this instance,
at least, as diplomatic as well as commercial envoys, for
Muntaner stresses the permanence of their post and the dip
lomatic importance to Jaime of having permanent representa
tion in key cities of North Africa, representatives who
would presumably operate to win the confidence of high
51
Muslim officials. These consuls certainly were not
ambassadors in the sense in which Garrett Mattingly and
50
Bamdn Muntaner, Chr&nica. o descrii>ci6 dels fets.
e haga*nre»T An 1 Wlvt Rav bon Jmimri irlmerr Bev d'lranro,
del Mailorques. e de Valencia e de molta de bob descendants
(Barcelona, l^o2), Chapter XXxI, "folio 2*f.
Muntaner, Chr&nica. Chapter XXXI ^ folios 2^-25.
Donald Queller use the phrase. They were not accredited to
conduct or maintain a diplomatic mission, nor were they
given the right to use their own initiative in these mattera
But it is important to note that these North African consuls
were expected to use all of their influence and contacts to
pave the way for formal diplomatic missions. They were
also expected to smooth over any diplomatic problems which
fell,within the purvey of a consul, and especially any prob
lem which involved Catalan merchants. They were not resi
dent ambassadors, but they were useful as listening posts
abroad, and were expected to fill the same kind of "diplo
matic" role as the modem day consulate abroad.
Because of the complexities and shifting alliances
and policies of the Iberian political scene, this study
will not concentrate at all intensively upon those consu
lates which the various Spanish powers established more or
less hesitantly in each other’s territories. It is inter
esting, however, that in 1282 the Catalans established the
first consulate in another Iberian power’s territory. The
establishment of the Castilian consulate was consonant with
Pedro el Gran's policy of slowly building an overseas
empire controlled from Catalonia, particularly a commercial
empire whose profits would help his small treasury. In
1282, Alfonso el Sabio granted to the Catalans the same
rights and privileges in Sevilla as had already been
enjoyed by the Genoese merchants for some years past. To
quote from this interesting privileges
Diemos a los mercaderos catalanes tanbien a low
que son moradores en la noble cibdat de Siville,
commo a los que y vinieren d*aqui adelante con
sue mercaduras, por nostra carta plomada estas
franquezas, que seran dichas; e la carta era
fecha en esta guisa.
There follows a list of Alfonsofs titles and a lengthy
peroration, thens
. . . por si e por todos los otros mercaderes
catalanes, tanbien por los que son vezinos de la
noble civdat de Seville, commo por los que
vinieren y d*otra parte con sus mercaderias, e
pidie nos merced, que nos que les atorgassemos
aquellas franquezas, que pertenecien a fecho de
mercaderia, que el onrrado e bienaventurado rey
don Ferrando nostro pader ovo dado a los
genuese, quando les dio barrio e algondega en
la noble Cibdat de Seville, e les fizo otras
mercedes muchas por su privilegio, que les nos
oviemos despues donfirmado por nostra carta.
£ nos, por sabor que avemos que la cibdat de
Sevilla se pu [e]ble bien, e porque sea mas rica
e mas abondada e por fazer merced a los mercaderos
catalanes, dames les estas franquezas que aqui
seran dichas.?2
From the section of the document quoted above, we
may conclude that the dispensation granted by Alfonso*s
illustrious father, Ferdinand III, now applied in its
entirety, as the wording indicates. The Catalans were to
enjoy the privilege of establishing and maintaining an
52AHM, L. Verm.. II, 92-93.
#■]
alfondic in Seville, in their own quarter of the city; the
same privilege as the Genoese already enjoyed. The docu
ment goes on to indicate that in addition to having an
alfondic the Catalans would have the privilege of paying
for it, with a duty of five maravedls on their goods as
they entered the city, with an additional tax of two and
one half ounces of Plata fina for each one hundred jars of
53
good grade oil entering the city. ^ The Catalans were to
be exempted from any duties applied toward the Castilian
navy or to the direct upkeep of the city itself, and were
to receive safe conduct in any territory of the king of
5 M -
Castille and Leon.
The first Catalan consul in Seville was Pedro de
Cardedor, who took office when Alfonso handed him the above
privilege in 1282. He was succeeded by Nicolau Amau, who
took office in 1308 and held it for five years, until he
was replaced by Pedro Llopart, a resident of Barcelona pos
sibly sent to Seville specifically to run the consulate
55
there. Apparently a common phenomenon occurred, one
53AHM, L. Verm.. II, 92-93.
cOi
AHM, L. Verm.. II, 92-93. This privilege was
reconfirmed by Alfonso * s successor Lon Sancho, the Infante,
in 128^. Two points, the safe-conduct of all Catalan mer
chants and the similarity of the privileges accorded the
Catalans to those accorded earlier to the Genoese, are
especially emphasized in this recapitulation of the much
longer privilege of Alfonso el Sabio.
55ahm, L. Verm., II, 93; Bofarull y SanB, Anti«ua
Marina, pp. 67-TT. ---
which we shall encounter again and again. The merchants at
Seville were so displeased with the rule of Llopart that in
1320 they begged the city of Barcelona to reconsider and
send a worthy and honest replacement, so the Council of One
Hundred then elected Guillermo de Bellsoley, who served
56
until he died in office.
The next significant foundation of a consulate
occurs in 1286, when on the twenty-second of February of
that year, King Jaime I of Sicily (the Infante Jaime)
granted to the Catalans the right to have consuls in his
newly acquired kingdom of Sicily, with jurisdiction and
57
other rights over merchants and sailors. This grant was
the logical culmination of the bloody years before— the
years of Charles of Anjou, the Sicilian Vespers, the strug
gle to establish the hegemony of Aragon through the young
Jaime, the interdict against Jaime the Conqueror and the
^AHM, L. Cons. 1319-1320, number 30. "... Havem
©let e posat ara de present l'honrat En Guiellem de
Bellsoley ciuteda de la dita ciutat en consul de Xibilia.
Per que per auctoritat de dit privilegi vos requerim e.us
pregam que lo dit Guillem de Bellsoley tingats e reebats
per consol e obehescats a ell, axi com a corned es acutumat
de obehlr, e que en tot qo quo master vos haja li donets
favor, conseyl e ajuda. E no obehescats ne tingats per
consol d'aqui avant de la dita ciutat de Xibilia sino lo
dit En Guillem de Bellsoley, ne responats de dret de conso-
lat a negu altra sino a ell, car tot consol qui y sia estat
tro el dia de vuy no removes, e.n levam e lo dit En Guillem
de Bellsoley l.y posam, e y elegam e y metem."
57AHM, L. Vert.. I, 251.
realm of Aragon, and the assistance which had come from the
to
men and ships of Barcelona to aid the Infante. At this
early date all of the merchants resident in and trading in
Sicily were to elect a consul to govern them, an interest
ing skirting of the privilege of Jaime the Conqueror which
had given that right to the city council of Barcelona. It
appears that Jaime, newly in possession of Sicily and at
loggerheads with his father, felt either that be need not
or could not bother with the Barcelonan city government.
This is one of the few examples we possess of a Catalan con
sulate originating outside the mechanism of election or
appointment by the city council at Barcelona. The signifi
cant passage of James' privilege reads, "eis de liberalitate
mera et gracia speciale, concedimus quod predict! cathalani
in singulis terris et locis regni Sicilie, illi vlderint,
59
in consulem." 7 This official was to have the power to
hear and adjudicate all civil causes which involved Catalans
(whether this applied in the case of a suit involving only
one Catalan and one native Sicilian we do not know), with
-v
the appropriate powers to fine and punish as he deemed
58
Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers (Cambridge,
1958). See introductory chapters, but especially pages 201*
210.
59AHM, L. Vert.. I, 251.
necessary. In this instance, however, the state of
Jaime's little kingdom must have heen such that he felt it
necessary to keep all criminal jurisdiction in his own
hands, for the consul is specifically advised that his
legal authority will not extend to hearing any criminal
6l
suits of-any nature.
The Sicilian consulates will be examined in greater
detail later but it is interesting to note that the consul
gezferal of Sicily, the one consul ultimately responsible
for the Catalan commercial community, was always to reside
at Palermo, the center as well of court as mercantile life.
Though the dates of the foundation of most of the other
Sicilian Catalan Consulates are not known it is clear that
by 13*+5 the other two major consulates at Trapani and
Messina, at least, as well as at Palermo, already existed,
for a privilege of Louis I of Sicily confizms and ratifies
the right of the city government of Barcelona to elect con-
62
suls for those three Sicilian cities.
^°AHM, L. Vert.. I, 25l. "Qul consul questiones et
causas civiles, quas inter eos moveri oontigerit. vel ipsos
ab aliis conveniri, audiar, examinet et debito fine decldat.
t l
• e »
^AHM, L. Vert.. I, 251. MIta tamen, quod de ques-
tionibus criminal ibus se zxullatenus intromit tat, et ad
easdem questiones criminales manus suaa aliquatenus non
extendant•M
62AHM, L. Cons. 13^5, f. 27-28
38
I
The relationship of the various Sicilian consulates
with one another has always presented something of a puzzle,
but in general terms it appears, that the consulate of
Palermo was the most important consulate on the island,
with a kind of primacy of honor over the others, though
Trapani and Messina were also full consulates with a consul
and vice-consuls and a lieutenant for defensive arrange
ments. These major consulates were responsible for electing
or appointing subconsuls to govern the other lesser consul
ates on the island. That is to say, the consul of Palermo
appointed the consuls of Cefaledi, of Termini, and of all
those territories and towns lying beyond the fiiver Salso.
The consulate of Messina, again, appointed the consuls of
Pactas, Melazo, Catania, Taormina, Syracuse, Agusto,
Heraclea, Melfi, and Gandisi, while the consul of Trapani
supervised and appointed the consuls for Licata, Girgenti,
Sacco, Mazara, and Marzala.
Pounded at a slightly later date, the commercial
consulates of the Catalans in Sardinia had a much more
stormy history than most of the others. When Jaime II was
about to receive his crown and kingdom from the pope, he
made a gesture of conciliation to Barcelona by granting
them the right to elect consuls for Sardinia. They were to
have the right to elect or remove consuls at their own
discretion, and to establish as many consulates and
£0
subconsulates there as they thought necessary. Further,
the judgments of the Catalan consuls were subject to
neither review nor appeal. A judgment in commercial
matters was final. In theory, the chief consul was always
to reside at Caller (Cagliari) but the geography of the
island and the plottings of the Genoese, ousted first in
the 1 3 3 0 ' s , combined to make effective centralization
impossible, with the result that the consulates were fre
quently divided in their purposes, their methods of admin
istration, the quality of the justice dispensed, and
jealousy over every real or imagined gain won by the mer-
6 lf
chants resident at another consulate. Commerce was so
successful, however, in Sardinia that eventually there were
four autonomous consulates on the island, with three more
^AHM, L. Vert.. I, 312-313. The Catalan consul of
Sardinia was, at the outset, to have authority as well over
the Catalans resident on the adjacent island of Corsica.
The consul was to have both civil and criminal jurisdiction
over all Catalans in all parts of the island. Further, he
was allowed a servant whose only duty was to carry arms for
the consul, this apparently being forbidden to the consul
himself.
^"AHM, L. Vert.. I, 312-313. For reasons which I
fail entirely to understand, Sardinia appears to have had,
even during the 13th century, the worst system of roads
known to traders. They did, and still do, start in the
middle of a field and end at the edge of a cliff, originat
ing nowhere and going nowhere. This lack of viable commun
ications routes in Sardinia compounded many of the problems
caused by intense regionalism and a certain narrowness of
outlook which seems to have been peculiar to those Catalans
who established themselves permanently in Sardinia.
bo
directly controlled by and responsible to the consul of
Caller.^
One factor of great importance in the development
of the consulates of Sardinia was the continuing bitter
rivalry between the merchants of Catalonia and those of the
near-by republic of Genoa. As the historian Zurita has
noted, referring to the reign of Alfonso el Magnanimo, the
continuing battle between the Catalans and the Genoese
often was a cruel one. Further, the theater of combat was
often the cutthroat mercantile arena, in which the Catalans
and Sicilians gradually began to gain an ascendancy by vir
tue of their vigor, stamina, and skill as traders. Arms
/
and the naval forces of the maritime powers were not infre
quently employed to back up the claims and demands of the
66
merchants. These remarks certainly indicate the intensity
65
•'Oristan, Sacer and Algure make up the other three
important consulates of Sardinia. The commerce upon which
the Catalan prosperity rested revolved around the exporta
tion of wheat from Sardinia to Aragon. This is one of the
few instances in which Catalans dealt heavily in agricul
ture as middlemen in a foreign country. Soldevila makes
thie interesting comment on the size of the wheat trade *
"La pro due id de blat no era comparable a la de Sicilia,
per& no devia dsser nellgible quan Hug d'Arborea escrivia
a Alfons el Benigne que els d'Oria rebels treien de Logodor
les saques de blat que volien, malgrat la prohibicid reial,
i s'enduien tot el profit que d'aquell district© ha via
treure el rei que era una gran suma." See Soldevila,
Historia de Catalunya (7 vols.; Zaragoza, 1669-1671),
P. ^3.
___ _ ^Antonio Zipita, Anales de La Corona de Aragfa.
VII, Chapter HI. "Des d'ale shores es comenck a fer la
of the conflict and the wide theatre over which It mast
have been enacted. These trading wars closely resemble, In
many respects, those wars for mercantile expansion and dom-
ination which the great powers of Western Europe fought
over the trade of India, China, and Africa immediately
before the outbreak of the First World Warr . In the Middle
Ages, these struggles resulted in commercial consulates in
Sardinia which were at least half fortresses and half trad
ing centers, governed more arbitrarily than most others In
the Catalan sphere and filled with the intrigues of four-
67
teenth century Aragonese politics.
Turning from the major islands, Sicily and Sardinia,
guerra entre Catalans 1 genovesos curelfssimament, no sols
per I’illa de Sardenya, perA com entre dues nacions que
competien per la senyoria de la mar, perquA, a judici de
les gents, eren els Catalans en aquest matelx temps pre-
reits also genovesos i a totes les altres nacions en l'us
i l'exercici de les coses marl times, aixi en la navegacid,
com en el fer de la guerra, en la foralesa, vigor, indtls-
tria, i gran fermesa i resistAnciat i les axmAdes del reis
d’Aragc? 1 Sicilia tenien el do mini i possessid de la mar.
Aix5 va sustenar-se molt de temps, amb el premi i amb el
cAstig; i tenien els Catalans tan rigoroses llels en les
seves navegacions, i les coses estaven en tant d’ordre, que
en una llei de les llurs es donava pena capital i de mort
al comit que amb una gal era envestia a terra, per fugir de
dues dels enemies."
67
'Sardinia had the misfortune at times of being
easily reached from Barcelona, and in the later fourteenth
century we find that the internal squabbles of the Council
of One Hundred often found their way to the island con
sulates. Zurita, Anales. Til, Chapter ZTI.
hi
In which Catalano and Italians sought to establish monopo
lies, to the mainland of Italy itself, a different pattern
of consular activity emerges. Since this chapter is con
cerned primarily with the foundation and organization of
consulates, the details of administering the Italian consu
lates shall be relegated to a later chapter. In terms of
origins, however, the Italian consulates are interesting in
that they tend to have been established generally later
than those in other areas of the Mediterranean and to have
been concentrated in cities whose own businessmen were the
Catalans' toughest competitors. Unfortunately, the mate
rials which would allow us accurately to date the foundation
of the major consulates of Italy are lacking. The first
certain evidence that indicates there were consulates by
the early fourteenth century, comes from a letter of 1302
from the municipal council of Barcelona to the king's secre
tary. The letter asks that the secretary present to the
king a letter of credence for Jaime Landfreducci, a resident
of Pisa who had just been named consul of the Catalans in
68
that city. There follows, probably the same day, another
letter explaining that the previous consul, Simdn Arlocci,
AHM, Beg. Oral. Cons., folio 13* A copy of this
letter is also contained in AHM, Caja I, in the envelope
lettered "Pisa."
* + 3]
had but recently died and that a new consul had become
necessary9 though the letter falls to state when Arlocci
had been nominated, or whether or not he was the first
69
Catalan consul In Pisa. These letters concerning the
Pisan consulate also indicate another interesting tendency
which develops as the century progresses; namely, that the
Italian consular posts were often filled by merchants whose
70
names are clearly Italian.
It is then eome fifteen years from these letters of
1302 until we find another Italian consulate mentioned,
this time the consulate at Naples, the first reference to
which dates from 1317. There is a short note in Catalan
from the city government of Barcelona to Guillermo Naguera,
concerning customs duties and certain shipping regulations
71
involving his consulate.
We also have our first reference to the consulate
of Genoa in 1317. In the second half of May of that year,
the conselleres of Barcelona wrote to the consul of the
Catalans in Genoa, Nicolo de Orai, concerning a letter which
they had earlier written to another merchant in that
^AHM, Heg. Gral. Cons., Polio 13.
Among the most famous of these names is that of
Coaimo de Medici, who served as consul of the Catalans in
Plorence in 1*03. AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 69.
^AHM, Heg. Gral. Cons., folio 29 v.
72
city. Again, there is no information as to the exact
date of the founding of the Genoese consulate, but from this
point onwards we have practically continuous documentation
for its activities until l^^*
Two factors, both of them requiring considerable
additional research, are of particular interest in relation
to the Catalan consulate at Genoa. The first is the ques
tion of why this critically important consulate appears to
have been established only in the fourteenth century, at a
time when commercial relations were quite active. Cer
tainly, as we have already had occasion to see, the Catalans
were quite busy long before this establishing consulates.
Why, then, did they wait to establish a consulate in their
major rival's home port? The Genoese, as we know from
Capmany's research, already had a consulate in Barcelona
and in many other Catalan cities such as Vich and Seo de
Urgell by the end of the thirteenth century, well entrenched
and equipped to exert diplomatic pressures whenever the
opportunity presented itself. It is believed two answers to
m
this puzzle are possible. The first involves the inevitable
problem of documentation. It may be true that this consu
late did in fact date back to the later thirteenth century,
and the documents indicating this have simply not survived
^2AHM, Heg. Gral. Cons., folio 59
or hare been lost in the archival reshuffling during the
Spanish Civil War. On the other hand, it is also possible
that the Catalans simply were not allowed to establish a
fully authorized commercial consulate in Genoa because of
the intense rivalry between the two nations.
The second factor which requires much more investi
gation by those familiar with the Genoese archives is the
question of the status accorded the Catalan consul in Genoa
during the frequent periods of conflict between Aragon and
the republic. It is known, for example, that the Catalan
consul was often caught in an embarassing diplomatic cross
fire , sometimes involving the most blatant acts of piracy
\
and impressment. A letter of June 16, 1339* informs us
that a Barcelonan vessel had recently been seized by the
Genoese, its crew impressed, and its cargo (of oil, salt,
and grain) confiscated. The consul was supposed, somehow,
73
to secure the release of at least the cargo. Unfortun
ately, the materials which are available in the archives at
Barcelona give at best an incomplete picture of this impor
tant consulate during the critical fourteenth century. The
lacunae are many, especially for those periods of conflict
which would be the most interesting. Prom the Barcelonan
documents it can only be concluded that the consul's life
i ■ ■ i F i ■■ i i i ii i
AHM, Caja I, Consulado Ultramarina.
mast have been a difficult one, though it appears that dur
ing periods of peace the tensions were relaxed sufficiently
for the Barcelonan council to appoint as Catalan consul a
7*t
citizen of Genoa itself, one Federigo Esbarguer.
It is difficult to ascertain why this policy of
appointing a native merchant as consul of the Catalans was
not more widely followed, or why it worked in Italy, where
competition was keenest and where political and mercantile
75
advantages often outweighed many other considerations.
It may well have been that in commercial matters the
Catalans trusted first the merchant with insight into the
complexities of local problems and local business mores,
and felt as well, perhaps, that Catalan consuls dispatched
directly from Barcelona were not usually any more trust
worthy or helpful than the indigenous merchants with whom
76
the Catalans worked. A specialized local knowledge could
be of great benefit in an area as keenly competitive as the
peninsula, and it may also be assumed that mercantile inter
ests were, by the fourteenth century, beginning to cut
7L
AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 5l v.
^Outside of Italy, only in Damascus do we find a
consul appointed from the local merchant class, though many
of the consuls, it is true, had lived so much of their
lives in the cities which they served as to be virtually
indistinguishable from native residents. See AHM, Reg.
Gral. Cons., folio 73 and 73
76
See. for example. AHM. L. Vert.. I. 137. and
II, 21*+• . ------
V7
across regional borders and feudal allegiances. It is also i
likely that the very concept of a consul being a citizen of
the oountry which he represented did not develop until the
late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, when national
boundaries became less fluid and much more sharply drawn,
and when the concept of "patriotism" and nationalism influ-
77
enced more strongly men's political views.
finally, it is clear that the information in the
Spanish archives regarding the formation of the other con
sulates in Italy is extremely sketchy and not always very
useful, for example, the first document for the Homan con
sulate is dated-Jtily 12, 1^8^, though undoubtedly the
Catalans had a consulate there long before this late date.
The information"for Rome consists of only five small items,
each without special significance, consisting only of the
/
names of three consuls and two brief notes concerning one
of them, Bernard Bussay, whose election to the office had
78
been challenged by the Catholic King.
The first information given concerning the republic
of San Marco consists of a notice of the election of
Ghiillermo Oilment as consul of the Catalans in Venice. His
^AHM, Caja I, Register I, folio 3v.
^®See note 77, and AHM, Caja IIIi register I, folio
20v.; AHM, Caja III, register X, folio 35v.; AHM, Caja III,
register I, folio Mf; AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 175.
nomination was approved by the magistrates of Barcelona
following the recommendation of the King of Aragon,
Alfonso V. The letter of credence is dated November 20,
l1 *51. The letter goes on to explain that the king has asked
that Climent be elected because he has come highly recom
mended as an except!onally honest man who had resided in
Venice for most of his adult life.^
Most of the rest of the documentation for the
Venetian consulate consists of a long string of increasingly
intransigent and ascorbic letters exchanged between the
king, the city government of Barcelona, the consul Climent
himself, and one Antonio Font, who sneaks into the picture
as a counterclaimant of the consulate. The major complica
tion which requires so much correspondence is that between
lM-51 and lM-5**, "th® date of the next letter, the consul-
elect, whose nomination seems not to have been confirmed by
the Council of One Hundred of Barcelona, moved from Venice
to Tortosa. The King (in Naples that spring) wrote again
to the city fathers urging that Climent be elected consul
of the Catalans in Venice in spite of his change of
80
address. The consellerea of Barcelona fired back a reply
to the king's secretary, Domingo Dexto, asking him to
^ACA, Cartas Reales, l**5l, folio 283.
®^ACA, Cartas Reales, l^^* folios 305-306
intercede with the treasury officials surrounding Alfonso,
apparently for the purpose of winning special new conces
sions for the Venetian consulate in return for the election
8l
of Climent* They also dispatched a slightly different
version of this letter to the king himself, asking that he
require his own treasury officials to firm up their
promised provisions concerning the consulate of Venice. If
this could he done, the conselleres imply, the matter of
82
getting Climent elected could be more speedily completed.
Finally, in July of 1^59 the conselleres wrote to Juan dez
Torrent, envoy sent by the king to the city, asking him to
Intervene with the king over the matter of the promised
privileges.83
The other consulates of Italy, such as Saona,
Reggio, and Modo, to name but a few, are represented in the
documentation usually by no more than a line or two in some
8k
instrument in the Archivo Municipal. So little is known
about them that there is every reason to believe they
Oi
AHA, LLetr. Clos., folio 36, verso.
82AHA, Lletr. Clos., folio 1*9.
8^AHA, Lletr. Clos., folio 93*
8lf
AHM, Consulado Ultramarino, Caja I. The docu
ments in this box (caja) are simply collected in paper
clipped piles. There are about three hundred of them in
this group, and no other reference system is available for
them.
represented neither large problems nor important Catalan
merchant communities. Only Candia among the minor consu
lates has more than a passing reference as a memorial., and
it is mentioned in several lengthy documents of the middle
decades of the fifteenth century, along with such major con
sulates as Genoa and Pisa. These references are contained
in a series of letters to the consuls of Genoa and Pisa
concerning relations between those republics and Barcelona,
85
and Candia is mentioned several times.
Of much greater interest, however, is the gradual
evolution of the Catalan consular system in the Byzantine
sphere of influence. Here again the Catalans were in com
petition with other highly developed mercantile communities
operating from relatively close bases of supply (Venice,
for example, and Constantinople itself). The Catalans began
trading at Constantinople by tfie 1270*s but, it was not
until 1290 that their position at the Byzantine capitol
became formal. In that year Andronicus II Paleologus
granted to the Barcelonans and to the other subjects of the
Corona de Aragdn the right to practice commerce freely
within the city pf Constantinople end in the other major
86
cities of the dwindling Byzantine empire. Dalmacio Suner,
1
8^AHM* Lletr. Clos., folios I5?v-l60v, folios 167-
169v.
88AHM, Pergs. Munioipales. Two copies of this
privilege exist, the first in Greek, the second in Latin
citizen of Barcelona and long time resident of Constan
tinople, was elected (or appointed) Catalonia's first con
sul in the Levant. The Catalans, led by Suner, were
allowed to have their own consulate at Constantinople (and
presumably in the other cities as well), and they were to
87
be exempted from all duties of naafragio.
The Catalans were to have a favored position within
the commercial life of Constantinople, which must have been
extremely upsetting to the jealous Venetians. They were
exempted from certain customs duties on entering goods, and
they were relieved of the duty upon gold and silver which
left Constantinople. From this basis the Catalans were
able to construct the beginnings of their commercial empire
in the near east. Under Suner*s leadership the Catalan
community at the Byzantine capital flourished and its
translation. The references here are to the Latin transla
tion: "... excellentissimi regis Aragonum et Sicilie
relationem fecerint imperio nostro per consulem Cathelano-
rum Dalmacium Segndrium qui nuper ad partes nostra accessit,
quod aliqui exiipsis volunt venire Constantinopolim et ad
alias terras imperii nostri pro Faciendls negooiationibus
suis; super quo rogaverunt et petlerunt quod privilegium et
crisobolum imperil nostri eisdem facere deberemus ut hace
libertatem habere valeant, et venire posslnt sine impedimen-
to, et quod etiam fieret els aliqua relaxatlo de solutione
comercii."
^?AHM, Perga. Municipales, Privilege of the Emperor
Andronicus.
membership Increased to several hundred merchants by the
88
middle years of the fourteenth century. The consulate of
the Catalans Itself grew in size and the powers of adminis
tering customs duties and justice within the Catalan com
munity which Andronicus had granted were also more effec
tively wielded by the consuls who followed Suner. In point
of fact, the Emperor had set up a most interesting system
for financing both the Catalan oonsulate's operation and
his own treasury. The Catalan consuls collected a single
duty upon all Catalan merchants who came through the port,
and then simply divided this revenue with the Imperial
treasury officials, thereby relieving the Greeks of the
necessity of dealing with the Catalans, and permitting the
89
Catalans a very great degree of autonomy within the city.
The consuls, of course, tended to view this privilege as a
license for exploitation whenever possible, and since the
more they collected the happier the Imperial officials were,
they knew that they could count on the favoritism of the
Byzantine officials who dealt with the foreign merchant
90
communities.
^Soldevila, Historia de Catalunya, pp. 390-393*
89
•MUM, Perg. Municipales, Privilege of Andronicus
II.
^The consuls at Constantinople were most often
accused of taking bribes from the Greek officials where any
conflict of interests occurred. Secondarily, they also
53
With a foot in the commercial door of the eastern
Mediterranean the Catalans began to expand as soon as they
had consolidated their position after the privilege of
Andronicus II. In 1291 the Catalan merchants to the south
had managed to secure from the king of Cyprus and Jerusalem
a grant of privileges and immunities for the extensive
Catalan community already operating in the Holy Land and
along the old coastal trading routes of the Levant. This
grant may be viewed as the beginnings of that extensive
Catalan involvement in the eastern Mediterranean which soon
was to lead to the Catalan Grand Company and to the gradual
expansion of Barcelona's consular system to cover the entire
area with a network of protective commercial bases under
the charge of the consules ultramarines. The King of
Jerusalem and Cyprus, Henri II of Lusignas, granted to the
Catalans rights and privileges which closely paralleled
those given the year before by the Emperor of the Byzantines,
and which subsequently formed the bases for all of the char
ters and privileges for Catalan consulates in G-reece itself,
Romania, Hungary, and the interior cities of the Levant.
The Catlans were given the right to maintain their
charged excessive fines for commercial misdemeanors com
mitted by their Catalan subjects, failed often to give
assistance to Catalan merchants, and no two occasions
actually stole the cargoes out of boats which had just
arrived from Barcelona. AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folios 63,
67, 101; ACA, Letras Reales, 1357, number 13, and 1363,
numbers 7, 8, and 9*
"customary" lonias and their alfonica within the confines
of the port and their own quarter of the city. They were
to he given the aame rights as had already heen extended to
several of the Italian communes, especially Genoa and
Venice, though Venice continued usually to maintain a
91
favored position. Henri II granted certain rights of
jurisdiction and certain customs duties to the consuls of
the Catlans. These rights applied to all merchants and
sailors who either resided in or who anchored in his ports.
Nos, Henriz . • • faisons a savoir a tous ceaus,
qui sunt et qui a avenir sunt, que nos, por nos et
por noz heirs sones acordes o les marchans cathelans
et o chascun cathelan, qui sunt et seront, estaians,
alans, venans, entrans et issans en nostre dit
reaume de Chipre en la forme et en la maniere ci
apres deinsee, c'est a savoir* que tot premier nos,
por nos et por nos diz herieus, lur avons otroie de
grace especial, que de totes les merchandises, que
ils deschargeront ou feront descharger en nostre
dit reaume de Chipre, de queique part qu'eles
veignent, ils n'en doivent paler que deus hyzants
per centenar estimant les dites marchandises con-
venablement, et de totes les marchandises, que ils
tireront de nostre dit reaume, paleront aussl deus
hyzants per centenar, c'est a savoir, as.leus et
des choses dont l'on a acostume a paier.92
Further, if the merchandise was carried into any of the
three major ports in Henri's territory, and the cargoes of
one ship transferred to another ship, then the merchant had
91AHM, L. Verm.. II, 173.
92Air M, I*. Verm.. II, 173.
to pay one bvzant to the king's treasury per hundred
93
assessed valuation. Exactly when the consulate of Cyprus
was established Is not known, though In the fifteenth cen
tury there are several references to it in the Archives of
Barcelona. They tell us little more concerning the size of
CL
the consulate, its prosperity, or its general history.^
Out of the roots established by the grants of the
Emperor Andronicus and of Henri of Jerusalem and Cyprus,
the Catalans gradually branched out to establish other
consulates in the Levant, though again often there is not
exact information as to the terms or the dates of founda
tion of these consulates. The first notice of the consu
late of Modon, in Romania, comes at the late date of
November 28, 1^37, in a letter from the government of
Barcelona to the emperor of the Byzantines, Theodore,
recommending to him the two new consuls which the city had
just appointed to serve posts in his realm, the one at
Constantinople, the other at Modon. The consul at Modon
was Pedro Rocafort, scion of a prominent mercantile family
of Barcelona, whose brother, Nicol&s Rocafort, took over
95
the post of consul at Constantinople at the same time.
93AHM, L, Cons., 1381-1383, folios 6-9.
^ACA, Reg. 15^6, 19*7, 1579.
9^AHM, Caja I, Consulado Ultramarino.
Copies of this letter to the emperor were also dispatched
to the despot of Romania asking that the cooperation which
had always been extended to Catalans in these territories
he continued* The letter goes on to ask that these two
autocrats at least give some attention to the proposals for
the reductions of various customs duties for Catalans which
the newly appointed consuls would convey to them as soon as
96
they assume their posts.
Finally, the last major consulate of the Levantine
area was that of Damascus. The consul of Damascus had
jurisdiction over the Catalans in Armenia and in Lebanon,
as well as over those resident in Syria. In July of 1382
is noted the only certain reference in the Catalan archives
to this large unified consulate. In that year a letter
from the conselleres of Barcelona to the incumbent consul,
Amoldo Marcella, requesting him to cede his office to a
successor, Amoldo de Vallseca, who has just been appointed
97
by the city council. No further references have been
found to this combined consulate, and Capmany concludes,
probably quite rightly, that such a huge territory was
inefficient, unmanageable, and generally a nuisance to the
96AHM, Lib. Cons., 1^36-1^38, folios lM-0-1^1.
9?AHM, Caja I, Consulado Ultramarino. A copy of
this letter is contained in AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 66 v.
Catalans, for it is noted that in January of 1386 a reorgaa^
ization had apparently been accomplished. A compromise had
been worked out between Amaldo de Vallseca on one side and
the Consulado del Mar and the city council of Barcelona on
the other side regarding the manner in which a new consu
late consisting only of Damascus was to be administered and
98
over whom its jurisdiction extended.
This document of January 9, 1386 gives a glimpse of
some of the tensions and problems which must have beset
both the consul on the spot in the Levant and the city
government at home which was pledged to control and direct
his activities. A three-year term of office was specified,
presumably to allow the consul to become thoroughly familiar
with his post and its residents, and to lessen the problems
inherent in transferring authority more frequently in an
area so far from Barcelona. Anyone elected to the office
of consul had to be a Catalan, and provision was made for
a man to succeed himself in the position for a second three
99
year term. To succeed himself the consul had to have the
endorsement of the local merchants and sailors who resided
in Damascus or who used the facilities there. The consul
was allowed a greater remuneration for his household
98
AHM, Caja II, CIZ, Consulado Ultramarino.
"AHM, Lib. Cons., 1383-1393, 19-21.
expenses and could even keep with him any two good slaves
and one free domestic from Damascus or Beirut once his term
of office had officially ended, even if he left the country
with them.^0 Unless the problem of obtaining good ser
vants in the Mediterranean area has changed, this must have
worked some hardship of the consulfs successor.
The consul at Damascus was to have full authority
in both civil and criminal cases involving all merchants
and other travellers from Catalonia who came to his terri
tory (as far as this jurisdiction did not specifically con
flict with Moorish usage or law).1^1 Unfortunately, it is
not known whether this jurisdiction extended to the other
subjects of the kings of Aragon and Sicily. It could be
that since the wording of the document specifically mentions
Catalans and pointedly fails to mention other groups, the
jurisdiction of the consul extended only to Catalans. Thus,
also, the representational benefits of the consulate may
also be assumed to have extended only to the Catalans. It
is not known what provisions were made to represent the
merchant community which had been covered by the older,
larger consulate, but there is no indication in the archival
materials that any stir of protest was occasioned by this
100AHM, Lib. Cons., 1383-1393, 19-21.
101AHM, Lib. Cons., 1383-1393, 19-21.
reorganization. In 1396 the consulate of Damascus appears
still to he functioning smoothly, for the city council
appointed a successor, Pedro Quintanas, for the aging and
102
possibly ailing Antonio Ameller.
Having thus far examined the situations vhich led
to the foundations of the major consulates in North Africa,
the Levant, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain itself, as
well as the dates of those foundations, it is necessary to
turn attention to the consulates of Prance, the increas
ingly powerful and bellicose neighbor to the north of
Catalonia. The consulates of Prance are particularly
interesting in that they seem not to have fulfilled the
high promise which one might have expected, considering
the close historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between
Prance and Catalonia. They were not particularly success
ful either in assisting the merchants with their commerce
or in assisting the king with his diplomacy. Relationships
with Prance after the era of the eleventh century Catalan
involvement in Italian ventures were noticeably cool, and
the expansion of Catalonia into Mallorca, Minorca, Sicily,
and Sardinia virtually halted constructive agreements
between these two powers. Yet trade relations continued
for four hostile centuries, and it is found that the
102
AHM, Caja I, Consulado Ultramarino.
earliest Catalan consulate in Trance .is mentioned in a
letter of December 23, 1301. The Council of One Hundred
asks that the consul of Montpellier assist in any way
possible a new merchant of good family who was coming to
trade in that area.^0^ In 133**, a consul was named to the
consulate of Nice, and then in the fifteenth century there
is documentation for the appointment of Melchor de Vaqueras
10*f
as consul of the Catalans in the seaport city of Marseille,
Named at the very end of this period of investigation was
the consul for Arles, who received- his letters of recommen-
105
dation in 1*4-79• Undoubtedly a search of the appropriate
municipal archives in Prance would unearth more materials
bearing upon the Catalan consulates in Prance, but it can
be assumed that if knowledge of Montpellier was known as
early as 1301, then more than likely the other consulates
of southern Prance followed closely thereafter. It would
be difficult to believe that the Catalans were only begin
ning to establish consulates in Prance at the very time whai
the commercial empire of which Barcelona was the head was
beginning to disintegrate under the pressures from a
103AHM, Lib. Cons., 1301-1303, folio lOv.
10SmM, Lib. Cons., 133*4-1336, folio 5; AHM,
Perga. Municipales, folio 13'v.
105ahm, Ca^a I, Consulado Ultramarino.
centralizing royal policy.10^
Having thus examined the origins of the office of
consul and the foundation of the major consulates of
Catalonia, it is possible now to move on to study in more
detail the office of consul itself, the duties and the
rewards which attended this important Catalan office.
1<^^It is difficult to understand why such scanty
material exists in Barcelona for the consulates of France.
It is also difficult to define exactly what constitutes a
consulate in southern France, as the actual boundaries of
Catalonia occasionally included such cities as Montpellier.
It is particularly in relation to this consulate that more
information would be most valuable, as the only example of
a consulate in a city which passed from Catalan domination
to foreign control.
CHAPTER II
- THE OFFICE OP CONSOL ULTRAMARINO
This chapter will prohe the office of the Catalan
consol ultramarino. its administrative! judicial, and
financial aspects. The previous chapter indicated the
broad lines of the historical origins of the office of
consul and set that office against the background of the
dates and circumstances of the foundations of the most
important consulates. With this background it will now be
possible to explore more completely and with a better per
spective the work which the consuls of the Catalans per
formed while at their posts overseas.
The city magistrates of Barcelona, conscious of
the great power and status which had been conferred upon
them by the power to elect consuls abroad, moved at once to
exercise that function. The city fathers attempted through
out the period under discussion to confer the consular
titles upon men of merit— men whose knowledge of commerce
and of the affairs of the business world would make them
respected abroad, both by their own nationals resident in
the consular zone and, perhaps as important, by the foreign
62
63
merchanta with whom the Catalans had to deal on a day-to-
day basis. Host of the consuls were well educated.1 Many
wrote a fine hand themselves and their use of the Latin
tongue is as accurate as that found anywhere else in the
2
Medieval business world. It is clear from the documents
of the fourteenth centuzy that many of the men assigned to
consular posts had spent a considerable portion of their
lives in the area in which they were to serve or at least
3
knew the language. It is relatively rare that a consul
was sent out who was not already thoroughly conversant with
both the problems of the area to which he was assigned and
also with many, if not most, of the important figures with
whom he would have to deal in both commerce and diplomacy.
The practice of appointing members of good families,
well educated, to the consular posts was not confined to 1he
Catalans alone. Among the Italian cities, as well, the
magisterial or senatorial classes were well represented
among the foreign consular officers. We find Dories,
Justinian!, Dandolos, Loredanos, and Medici serving over
seas.
2See, for example, AHM, L. Vert.. I, 163, 171, 183,
and AHM, L. Cons.. 1392, I f. 1271
3
A good example of this was the appointment of
Dalmacio Suner as first consul of the Catalans in
Constantinople. Suher already spoke and read Greek
fluently and had lived much of his life in the Empire.
AHM, Perga. Manicipales.
Pedro Quintana, appointed consul at Damascus in
1396, was also intimately familiar with the area in which
he was to be consul. His whole family spoke Latin and
Arabic and had at least one member residing in Syria for
three generations. AHM, Consulado de Ultramarino, Caja I.
At times, consuls were appointed from within the resident
merchant oommunity, and in some of the Italian communes the
Catalan consul occasionally was a native Italian, selected
either because he was knowledgeable about local conditions
and willing to help the Catalan interests in his city, or
else simply because he was more simudtico with the city
government of Barcelona than the members of the Catalan
i f
commercial community itself.
Before the consul was permitted to assume his new
office, he took an oath in front of the assembled city
council of Barcelona, swearing to govern lawfully and in
accordance with all of the statutes which applied to his
new post, especially those contained in the provisions of
Jaime I and in the older and more widely known Usatges of
5
the twelfth century. He promised to govern legally in all
ways, and never to use his post as an instrument of per
sonal gain. We have no doubt whatsoever that these pro
visions were seldom adhered to by the consul-elect, but the
continuation of this public oath until the time of Ferdinand
L .
This also occurred in the Sicilian consulates,
though as shall be seen later, it often aroused the hostil
ity of the local government. AHM, Manual number 2, Series
XIII, without folio or pagination.
e
'AHM, Caja Consules del mar, Primus liber consula-
tuum ultramarinorum, I, 1-2. This document actually makes
mention of the importance of obeying the provisions of the
Usatges.
65
of Aragon indicates that the city council attempted to
motivate a higher standard of conduct among the consuls
without the necessity of constant supervision and revised
6
legislation. The consul-elect waB then required, at least
until the middle of the fifteenth century, to post a bond
of assurance for his good conduct and for the safety of the
consulate's accumulated funds and assets. This bond was
always guaranteed by at least two close relatives who were
known perfonally to the members of the city council and who
were not themselves either planning to leave the country or
to take a consular job of any sort during the consul-elect's
7
tour of duty.
Once a candidate had been selected for a consular
office abroad, his election was announced, always in the
same way. The magistrates of Barcelona, who declared the
good name and ability of the oandidate, demanded that the
See especially AHM, L. Vert.. Ill, 87-88, the
lengthy document which contains detailed instruction and
the penalties to be imposed on royal officials. The oath
to govern properly gave the magistrates a more viable
handle by which to control the consuls abroad. See also
I* . Vert.. Ill, 106-108v.
7AHM, Caja consulea de mar, Primus Liber Consola-
tuum XJltramarlnorum, 79v-8l. It is not certain when the
bond was first introduced, but it probably began early in
the fourteenth century, as there seems to be no evidence
for its existence before 1332.
See AHM, Manual Humber 2, Series XIII. The bond,
with the oath were the chief legal ties which bound the
consul closely to the city government of Barcelona.
66
Catalans and other subjects of the Crown of Aragon living
abroad pay the new consul full honor and respect and obey
8 ^
him in all matters. A copy of this declaration was sent
with the consul to his new post, while other copies were
distributed by boat and couriers to the king or prince of
the territory in which the new consul was to serve, to the
.resident Catalan community, and often to the leaders of the
otiifer mercantile interests in the consular area. There are,
for example, several copies of suoh letters written for the
consul of Naples in the early fifteenth century. In their
similarity of form and content they provide an excellent
historical check on other letters, this time of the early
fourteenth century, written for Francisco Jacobi who
assumed the office of consul of Sicily in November of 1332
9
at the consulate of Trapani. In both instances the word
ing and the intention were practically the same, though by
the fifteenth century there was no longer the need, it
seems, to spell out all of the conditions of the new con
sult tenure of office and the obedience due him by his
^AHM, Manual 2, Series 13* See also AHM, Notularum
II, 103*10^, and AHM, Lletr. Clos,, folio 139.
^AHM, Manual Number 2, Series XIII is a continua
tion of the document cited in note 8* The document is
actually four documents bound together, all of them copies
of a letter naming the new consul. The letters concerning
Naples are found in AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 19» 19v, 20.
67
fellow Catalans, By the fifteenth century we may assume
that in most cases the office had existed in most cities
for several generations.^
The copy of the declaration which the new consul
took with him was the copy which made his appointment valid
and legal. Normally, the copy was sealed with wax and
string, the wax hearing the impress of the city crest of
Barcelona, hut never the crest of the Crown of Aragon,
Attached, usually to the string which ran through the wax,
was a seal of metal or occasionally of clay which bore
either the device of the city of Barcelona or of the Crown
of Aragon, though one finds the latter coat of arms rela
tively infrequently.11 With the breaking of the wax seal
at the port to which the consul was journeying his term of
office began.
An interesting compilation of data in a document of
1**83* at the end of the period, mentions that the consul
normally presented his credentials twice: first to the
10*
The letters of the fifteenth century were con
siderably shorter and more to the point than those written
in the preceding century. Many of the letters we still
possess are only three or four lines, containing a greeting
to the merchant community and a statement that a new consul
had been appointed. See, for example, AHM, Not. I, 136;
AHM, Caja I; AHM, Caja I, "Ragusa"; AHM, Caja III, Regis
ter I, folio ^3.
^Capmany, Memoriae Histdrlcas. I, 367, footnote
four.
ruler of the city or of the territory where he was to serve*
and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, to the merchant
12
community of Catalans whom he was supposed to govern*
The reader is not, unfortunately, told to whom he presented
his credentials in'the merchant community* One can specu
late that in a small, cohesive, suspicious community like
that of the Catalans in most cities abroad, the new consul
probably simply presented himself to the assembled group
of merchants, who, in some cases, had already been informed
of his arrival by the copies of his letters of credence and
13
instruction. It is worth noting, however, that his
tenure of office was not considered valid until the formal
ity of presenting himself to the merchant community of
Catalans was completed. What, exactly, they could have
done had they objected to the choice of consul is far from
clear. There simply is no evidence to suggest that the
merchant consuls were ever rejected out of hand before they
Ik
had actually governed for some period of time.
12see AHM, Manual Number 2, Series XIII.
^For example in October, l*f05» the merchants of
Palermo were notified of the arrival of Nicolau Bartomeu to
take up the office of consul there. AHM, Cartas Com.,
Orig., folio 179.
A similar letter exists for Trapani in the year
1365. AHM, Beg. Cral. Cons., folio *+3. See also AHM,
Caja III, Register I, folio 23.
lU
To the fact that the merchants abroad had little
say in the selection of the commercial governor may be
The significance of the presentation of credentials
to both the foreign government in which the consulate was
located and to the merchant community itself indicated the
somewhat anomalous position in which the consul oftentimes
found himself. The Catalan consul had a somewhat compli-
cated existence in that he had to stay on good terms with
the government which permitted him to operate his consulate
in the first place, while at the same time serving the
interests of the Catalans under his jurisdiction, whose
business very often brought them into legal conflicts with
that very local government. At the same time, the consul
often acted as a diplomatic agent for the city government
at Barcelona or for the Aragonese kings, a position which
made his life uneasy, as will be seen in the subsequent
discussion of the north African and Levantine consulates.
The Catalans possessed property of their own in
which they worked and often lived. This was a common
feature of the consulates of all nations during this period.
This property normally included a Ion,1a de contraccidn
where goods were stored and where the merchants maintained
15
small offices and even staffs of servants and clerks and
attributed some of the tensions which occasionally dis
rupted the consulate.
■^See P. Tails y Tabemer, "Notas Sobre el Consolat
de Mar,” Bevista da Catalunya (September, 1929)» and
Soler, Comercio. 182.
a juzgado consular. or consular court, where disputes
between Catalan merchants and between Catalans and foreign
16
merchants were settled. These properties were most often
located in a separate quarter of the city, a barrio
reserved for the foreign merchants of a particular national
ity. Catalans had their own quarter in most cities, as
did, for example, the Genoese or Venetians. Within the con
fines of these sections they were virtually autonomous
nations, governed in essentials by their own laws and
enjoying a kind of extraterritorial!am which, while not
formal, was nonetheless normally respected throughout the
Mediterranean world by most trading states. Only when the
merchants left the sanctuary of their own barrio did local
law and custom become important in their daily lives.
Normally, if they stayed out of trouble, the Catalan mer
chants did not encounter local governmental structure in
17
any way, except for the port or customs officials. The
lon.ia de contraccidn and the .iuzgado consular, located
^In a treaty of peace and amnesty between Jaime II
and Miralmoenin Ab Ab&z of 1323, the following reference
occurs: ~~
HItem, que negun crestia o orestiana de la senyoria
del dit senyor rey d ’ Arago, per deute, ne per negun alfre
cas civil ne criminal, no puixa esaer tret dels fondechs
del dit senyor rey d'Arago, lo oonsol tinent aquells a
dret, e fermant dret per aquells complldament en de falta
empero del consol, que .u fassa que l’alcayt de la duana,
segons que es acustumat.H Capmany, Col. Dip.. 113.
^Capmany, Memoriae Histdricas. I, 365-367
always within the confines of the barrio assigned to the
Catalans, formed the focus of the merchant*s life while
overseas, and it was over these twin mercantile institu
tions that the consul presided.
Unfortunately, we have little information on the
actual day-to-day way of life within consular cities. The
Ionia was clearly the center of merchant life, with its
many storerooms and its tiny office cubicles where accounts
could be prepared, bills made up, letters of credit and
18
introduction written. Usually a few large storerooms were
shared communally to store incoming and outgoihg cargoes
The buildings themselves varied in design. There is no
typical style, though the Catalans tended to take with them
their native architecture, which, like all commercial archi
tecture in Medieval Spain, revolved around an open court
yard, a fountain, and second and third story clerestory
windows to provide more light and ventilation than normally
18
Some rooms in the fourteenth century lon.la at
Barcelona are still virtually intact from the late Middle
Ages, and though they are larger and more luxuriously
appointed than those of other Catalan cities, as for exam
ple Seo de Urgell, they give a fine idea of what the Ionias
in other parts of the world must have looked like.
^The Ionia at Barcelona probably had four suoh
storerooms, measuring approximately fifteen by twenty-two
feet. In Barcelona there must also have been a small ware
house directly adjacent to the Ionia.
20
found In similar Italian or southern French structures.
It was here that the consul had his offices and from here
that he conducted the business of the consulate he governed.
The work of the ion-1 a and its physical facilities
were supported by "contributions" levied on all of the
merchants who had occasion to use the facilities and the
courts. One of the best references to this procedure
occurs in a privilege of 13*+9> related to the consulates of
^ Sardinia. • King Pedro IV gave the right to impose certain
duties and levies to the city of Barcelona for the main
tenance of the Ionia of (Cagliari) Caller.
The privilege begins with an explanation of the
role of the consul in developing and maintaining the facili
ties and services of the lon.1a in his city, and goes on to
explain the responsibility which the merchants and sailors
who use the Ionia and the alfondle have vis-A-vis its
maintenance. The introductory passages also indicate the
usefulness of the services and facilities offered and
indloates broadly who may enjoy them.
OQ
Considerable affection and creativity were
lavished upon commercial buildings by the medieval
Catalans. Besides the buildings still standing in
Barcelona, such as the Ionia, the stock exchange (formerly
the home of the Consulado del mar), the castle of
Montjuich where the Jewish merchants traded, there were
other equally impressive public works. See also Antonio
Bubio y Lluoh and others, Estado de la cultura eppawnig j
prjncipalmente catalvna en el siglo Xv (Barcelona. 1893).
73
Com lo consol de Cerdenya lo qual continuament
acustuma fer son domicil en castell de C&tter, no
haja alberch In aquell castell de caller a son
servey, ne lotge que sia comma a person©8
navegants e a totes altrea persones que baien a
fer ab lo dit consol, per raho del hit consolat;
e per tal los honrats consellers de la ciutat de
Barchinona, de voluntat e consentlment del honrat
oonse 11 de Cent Jurats, occupats per altres affers
de la dita ciutat, los quals haguessen informaoio
ab mercaders et ab patrons e ab d1altres persones
navegants, si seria profitosa cosa que lo conaol
de Cerdenya hagues alberch en castell de Caller a
son servey e lotge que for eonruna k persones
navegants, e a totes altres persones que halen a
fer ab lo dit consol per raho del dit consolat,
e en cas que trobassen que aco degues fer, que
haguessen informaoio per quina forma; e com los
dits Miohel Schola e N'Andreu d'Olivella, handa
informaoio ab los mercaders a patrons de la dita
ciutat, e ab moltea altres persones savies e
discretes, hajen trobat esser profitosa cosa
als mercaders e patrons e altres persones navegants
e a totes altres qui hajen a fer ab lo dit consol,
per raho del dit consolat e encara honor de tota
la nacio, que los dits alberch e lotge sien e.s
facen en castell de Caller segons la forma dejus
ezcrita e que .8 paguen segons la manera devall
c ont enguda. 1
The two consuls were specifically instructed to
begin the development of a full-fledged consulate within
the confines of the castle of Cagliari, where they appar
ently already resided. As is usual, the Catalan competi
tive instinct and sense of nationality is evident, appear
ing in the fear that the lack of a Ionia and alfondic with
permanent facilities would cause the Catalans to lose face
in front of the other merchant states.
^Capmany, Col. Pip.. Number 158.
7»*
Next the merchants were Informed of the size of the
new tariffs and their areas of applicability. All mer
chants who had any traffic with the mercantile section of
Caller, and especially those who either resided there or
who planned to do so, were informed that henceforth there
would be levied duties on all incoming and outgoing mer
chandise, whether cloth, raw wool, hides, foodstuffs includ
ing grains, wine, spices, oil, and even money itself. All
gold and silver, whether in the form of actual coinage, or
in the state of bullion were also to be subject to a tax
upon entry or exit from the consulate. In addition, any
vessel either arriving or departing had to pay seven
sdlidoa and six dineros per deck for the privilege of using
the uncertain docking and re pro visioning facilities of the
port. Every mariner of each ship helped to support the
consular coffers with a levied duty of eighteen dineros
which, parenthetically, indicates either that there were
few scruples concerning the fleecing of the average sailor
or else that the sailor expected and realized a high level
of profit for his uncomfortable life before the mast. At
least a half of this duty was to be applied to the main
tenance and improvement of the physical facilities of the
22
consulate itself.
22
Capmany, Col. Dip.. Number 158.
The consul was here given authority to levy a broad
spectrum of customs and other duties, including docking,
cargo handling, and storage taxes. Since the merchants and
seamen of Catalonia enjoyed the fruits of the lon.1 a and
other facilities of the port they were, naturally, expected
to contribute to its support and repair. Besides the one
dinero per pound of assessed valuation for all goods, the
merchants were also expected to pay the consul his regular
customs duty of two s<5lidos per hundred pounds of valuation,
which the consul was apparently free to employ as he saw
fit, either for salaries, his own expenses, or often for
bribes.2^
The juzgado consular, the consular court, often sat
within the confines of the lon.la. Over this court the
Catalan consul presided regularly, administering with fair
efficiency, and even sometimes with impartiality and human
ity the laws of Catalonia and of the Usatges. He settled
disputes between Catalan merchants and between them and
other nationals when the other consulates permitted him to
2l*
do so. Unfortunately it is not known specifically what
happened when another consul would not permit his national
^Capmany, Col. Bio.. Number 158. Eventually these
figures were adopted, towards the close of the fourteenth
century, by all of the Catalan consulates on Sardinia, thus
simplifying commerce there considerably.
pL
AHM, Manual number 2, Series XIII, a continuation
of AHM, Manual number 2, Series XIII. See also ACA,
to ait before the Catalan consul. In simple cases, the oon-i
sul judged the case by himself and then rendered his verdict
which, under the terms of the letter which had accredited
25
him, the Catalans were duty bound to accept and act upon.
There are instances in which the more complicated nature of
a case caused the city magistrates of Barcelona to decide
that'the consul should ask assistance. Often such cases
involved high personages, and the assistance came in the
form of having two other Catalan merchants sit with the
Register 1167* 2*fl ff; AHM, Caja Consules del mar. Primus
Liber consolatuum ultramarinorum, ll +83~l561 +, 1-2. See also
AHM, Reg. Oral. Cons., folio and ACA Register 338,
l*fl verso through lMf verso, a treaty of peace and friend
ship and commerce concluded between Jaime II and Abu Abas
of Tunis and Bugia in 1323. In relation to justice, the
treaty includes these points:
"Item, que negun crestia o crestiana de la senyoria
del dit senyor rey df Arago per deute, ne per negun altre
cas civil ne criminal no puiza esser tret dels fondechs del
dit senyor rey d’Arago, lo consol tinent aquells a dret, e
fermant dret per aquells complidaraent en de falta empero
del consol, que *u fassa que lfalcayt de la duana, segons
que es acutumat. Item, que per negun cas civil ne criminal
que s'esdevenga en la senyoria del dit rey de Tunis e de
Bugia, de crestia a crestia que sien de la renyoria del
senyor rey d'Arago, e sors lo seu consul; no haja res que
veer lo dit rey de Tunis e de Bugia. ne sos officials, sino
tansolament lo consol del dit rey d*Arago, qui aquells
segons dret per lo dit rey d'Arago puixan condempnar o
absolre. Ite, si algun cas s'esdeve o contrast de sarrahi
que .s elam de crestia que sia sots lo dit consol, lo qual
sia civil; que tansolament o deja conexer lo dit consol, e
que a aqo negun embarch no deja esser feyt per la senyoria
del dit rey de Tunis e de Bugia, ana sia feyt segons que es
acustumat."
of
''Capmany, Col. Dip., Humber 25
consul as judges. They could call upon their business
experience and their knowledge of the connercial codes to
reach a verdict, although the consul, at least in sons oon-
sulates, was not bound to accept their decision even if
they outvoted him. Normally, however, we may safely presume
that the judgment of the three would be substantially simi
lar and would be promulgated by the consul himself, since
26
ultimately all judgments were his responsibility. Because
it was based upon Homan law, there is very little emphasis
in Catalan law upon trial by a jury of peers. The city
magistrates often acted communally as a court, and the con
sular courts occasionally called upon esqpert assistance, but
judgments were seldom delivered by a corporate judicial
2?
body, as with the English trial juries of the Middle Ages.
From a judicial point of view, the office of consul
was an Interesting blend of policeman and trial judge. In
the foundation of every consulate, the consul was given
authority over all of the Catalans who travelled through or
resided in his territory. One of the best statements of
the juridical function of the consul is contained in a
letter to the consul of Trapani, dated November 27, 1332.
The magistrates of Barcelona there set forth the terms
26AHM, 1. Yert.. I, 251.
27j£A, Register 221, l*fO. Also AHM, Fergs. Munici
pals s. Boos, curiosos 13.
781
under which they have appointed a oonsul for that consulate
... Eligimus, ponimas seu mittimus roe dictum
Francieoum Jaoohi tanquam ldoneum et hememerltum
in consoles omnium mercatorum oathalanorum et
aliorum de dominatione dioti domlni regie Aragonum
navlgantium, euntium vel exlatentlum ad dictaa
partes et in dictas partes et in dictis partibue
de Trapena per mare et per terram, et omnium rerum
et meroium eorundem; ita quod t o s proouretis,
administratis, ordinetis, compellatis, puniatis
et omia alia faoiatls ad honorem et fidelltatem
prefatl domlni nostri regie Aragonum, ao oomodum
et utilltatem omnium Oathalanorum neroatorum, et
aliorum de dominatione dicti dominie regie
Aragonum illue navlgantium, euntium rel existen-
tlum personae omuee et singulas de dominatione et
terrle ipeiue domlni regia Aragonum ad lpsaa partes
navlgantes, euntee rel existentes, tarn per mare
quam per terram, et super omnia naviga de terrle
ipeius domlni regie llluch euncla rel navigancia,
et super mercee et ree e&rundem pereonarum qua
ibi seu eorom conflnibue fUerint.28
Further, all merchants and sailors and other travel**
lers who journeyed to or lived in the area of jurisdiction
of a consulate had to acknowledge the supreme authority of
the consul in all matters, but especially in regard to legal
and commercial affairs. The specific areas in which the
consul had jurisdiction are more clearly enumerated in a
recapitulatory document from the end of the Middle Ages.
In a letter of 1**83 to the merchants of Sicily, the oonsul
was directed to render judgements in all commercial and
Capmany, Col .Dip., Humber 132. See also AHM,
Caja Consoles del Mar, ^Eriana liber Consolatuum Ultra-
marinorum," 1M-83-156V, 2H verso-26.
legal disputes between merchants in his area of jurisdic
tion* The merchants were bound to plead before him openly
and honestly, binding themselres to obserre and obey what*
ever decision or judgement the consul handed down. They
were further enjoined to honor and obey his decisions and
orders in all situations involving Catalan affairs, not
just In mercantile disputes. The oonsul had the power to
enforce his commandments by fines, punishments, and other
penalties as long as he did not exceed Catalan law. His
authority was stated three different times as including all
merchants, sailors, sailing masters, agents, and all other
29
Catalan travellers who entered the consular territory.
Especially in suits involving commercial law was
the consul expected to act diligently, wisely, and promptly.
Most often we find that the consul was called upon to
settle disputes involving nonpayment of debts, particularly
in cases involving a merchant in Barcelona and one still
living in the consular area.^° Similar cases involved mis
dealings between two or more merchants of the oonsulate
itself, often over questions of fraud, false weights or
measures, nonpayment of debts, quitting a partnership
illegally, and falsifying bills of lading or cargo
^Capmany, Col. Dip.. Humber 132.
3°?or example AHM, Hot. I, 269-270; ACA, Cartas Com.
Orlg., folio 60.
80i
* 31
manifests*
Often the consul aleo had to do another kind of
juridical work, involving the peccadilloes committed by
Catalan merchante in the cities where they traded* A some
what complicated case will serve as an illustration of this
kind of work. In 1^35 the magistrates of Barcelona wrote
to the consul at Palermo, concerning the difficulties in
which several merchants found themselves following a near
riot in the square where the Catalan consulate was located*
f
Several of the Catalan merchants apparently faced punish
ment for their parts in the disturbances* The consul was
instructed to defend them as far as possible, but if they
were fined, the consul was to indemnify them for it* He
was also to indemnify all those Catalan merohants whose
31fhese matters may beat be understood by examining
some of the documents relating to the Consulado del Mar,
the Cuerpo de Me reader!as of Barcelona, for the documenta
tion provides us with much our best look at business diffi
culties during this period* See especially the long docu
ment AHM, Ord., lV33”1^5> 5** verso-58. This ordinance of
1^35 was published by the magistrates of Barcelona at the
behest of the Consulado del Mar, and contains references to
all of the business practices then common, but mentions the
importance of the consuls i f y,] f^^^rinos in stemming such
abuses abroad, though unfortunately not in such concise
terms as the modem researcher might desire* Another docu
ment of interest is in ACA, Beg* 137*t» 112* Here Pedro IT
ordered Bernardo de Maresa, consul in Syria, to adjudicate
a dispute over false oaths given by one merchant of
Barcelona, Guillermo Pedro de Costabella, to an Arab banker
of Bamasous, Esment, son of Taybuga. The problem oonoemed
a quantity of ginger and spices whioh the Catalan claimed
to have sold the banker*
goods had bean harmed in the troubles near the consulate,
32
though whose money he was to use is not made clear. A
similar situation existed in the 1280's in the difficult
post of Tunis, where the cheating and the generally poor
conduct of some of the Catalan merchants there nearly dis
rupted diplomatic relations between the Icings of Tunis and
Aragon. The consul was instructed to smooth over this
trouble and to contain, if he possibly could, the exuber-
33
anoes and excesses of the merchants under his authority.
The consul was also supposed to contain the occasional
piracy committed as a profitable side line by the Catalan
seamen, and in this case the Catalans were apparently so
clearly in the wrong that provisions were made to indemnify
injured Moorish merchants whose goods were stolen or
pirated by the enthusiastic Catalans.
Not only was the consul expected to have a full
oomnand of mercantile law and procedures but, in the four
teenth century, he was expeoted to keep a set of weights
32Tha Catalans on Sicily frequently found themselves
in rather serious difficulties with the local constabulary,]
possibly, because of the less than welcome presence of a
veritable army of occupation of Catalan merchants and j
administrators who helped keep tight the yoke of foreign
influence in the island.
33ACA, Register H7, 81-82 verso.
3**ACA, Register **7, 81-82 verso.
and measures to be used in deciding some of the more fla
grant cases of short weights and measures* in ordinance of
1333 requests the consuls of Sicily to "tengut de tenir II
oanes de canar draps justes et fines per canar loa dits
drape, ab lo senyal de la terra" and further requires that
the consul "tengut de tenir dues balances ab sos pesos, 00
es, una gran e altra pocha, e aqo per regonexer e pesar
safra, seda e altres robes menudea, e d'altra part hage a
35
tenir una romana al pes de la terra." The consul was
also expeoted to assist those merchants who had been cheated
by the native merchants, and there is good indication that
the consul was usually expected to render a verdict in such
cases which gave the award to the Catalan involved. In a
few cases the consul was also given specific criminal juris
diction within his sphere of authority, but since the prof
its of justice were high during the Middle Ages and criminal
law was more closely bound to local custom and to feudal
law, the merchant consuls were generally not equipped or
35
AHM, Lib. Cons. 1383-1393, 13 verso - l*f.
3^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 132. In this instance
the admonition is only implioit, but the tone of this and
several similar letters indicates that the magistrates of
Barcelona were not precisely pleased with judgements which
had gone against several merchants because of disputes
about valuations and customs duties. One merchant had had
his entire shipment of goods constrained in Sicily.
37
empowered to handle such oases.
When the work at the lonja. the argument and coun
ter argument of the court were finished for the day, the
responsibility of the consul then extended to the more or
less private aspects of the merchants* lives. In an age of
limited international relations, shifting and unstable
alliances, cud commercial rivalry, the consul's concern for
the private lives of the merchants of his state was easily
understood. The merchants were always in the position of
tolerated guests, at best, and very unweloome parasites,
at worst; it was the constant duty of the consul to maxi
mize the advantages of retaining his nation and its consu
late in the port of his city.
Within the barrio in which the consulate was
Bituated there were the amenities of life which differen
tiated these sections of the city inhabited by the foreign
merchants from ghettoes. Since their barrio was the only
secure place for the resident Catalans and their traveling
fellow nationals, it was here that the merchants built the
houses, the baths, the lovely gardens within patios, the
apartments, and even the churches which made their lot more
comfortable and civilised In the Moorish countries
37lHM, Manual 2, Series XIII.
3®»ieolaa D’Olvar, J5xpm.li}. PP. 35-37, «md H.yd,
Hletolr. du CoM»ro«. pp. 999-1001. tba alfondlo.. th*
especially, the religious life of the merchants had to be
conducted circumspectly within the barrio itself. Even in
Christian cities the Catalans often had their own priest
and at least their own chapel, though in several of the
Sicilian consular cities the Catalans are reported to have
constructed far costlier edifices to gratify their religl-
ous impulses. The other buildings were generally rela
tively sumptuous. There arm indications that really lovely
town houses, similar in many details with those to be found
in Medieval Barcelona itself, were built in the Catalan
quarters overseas, though the few remarks concerning these
homes give the impression that their lavishness, in the
Spanish manner, was confined primarily to the Interior
39 „
adornments. Perhaps in an age of personal violence and
enclaves which formed the barrios, were difficult to govern
from home, because they enjoyed a very high degree of
autonomy. Some of them even had their own cemeteries, as
well as the other conveniences mentioned in the text.
D'Olwer refers to the role of consul in this instance by
the phrase "cap de la eolonla,N a colony which was extra
ordinarily self-contained and self-sufficient.
39s*Teral orders for costly Interior furnishings in
the Municipal Archivd of Barcelona, collected with other
kinds of surviving Medieval business accounts were revealed.
In Cuestas del Aho 1^36, for example, it is noted a mer
chant by the name of Peran Brothador, whose major areas of
overseas Interest were Italy and Sioily, ordered a variety
of objects for his home from his local agents in Barcelona.
These Included gold and silver tableware (flatware), salt
eellars, silver wine pitchers (Catalans have never drunk
water and still do not, of course), rugs, and custom tapes
tries to be sent to him with his next supplies for his
vindic tiveneaa the Barcelonan merchant clearly grasped that
it was well for the state of his health not to display his
wealth or position too obviously.
These ancillary buildings, the hones, the chapel,
the warehouse a— were closely grouped around the main square
of the consulate, if it was large, or around the central
patio of the main building, if the consulate were smaller.
Consulates the size of those which we find at Palermo or
Bagusa or Trapani, for example, occupied really considerable
tracts of land and buildings within the city. The consu
late of Palermo, for example, had several major streets
running through it for some blocks, indicating that it
covered an area possibly of ten or more city blocks on each
side. Other consulates occupied much smaller parts of the
trading. Further, if his home in Sicily followed the exam
ple of those in Barcelona for the same period, then these
adornments were only for use inside. The outside of the
house would have been brick or plaster, with high windows,
small doors, and as little contact with the noxious streets
as possible. Similar indications that the merchants abroad
took excellent care of their residences may be found from
the objects ordered by Jacobo Bocclola in 1^23 and by
Melchor Mates in lMtl, this latter merchant a man clearly
able to afford the kinds of luxuries of which were noted,
for his uncle belonged to the city council for many years
and his brother was a prime builder for the city of
Barcelona itself.
L.0
See Antonio Bubio y Lluch, Documantoa per
cpltura db C»talaRyasa j L . ' p d f t i
(Barcelona. 1908-1921), II, 213 See also Gonz&lezde
Beparaz Buiz, "Els Mapes Catalans de la Bibllothdque,
Nationals de Paris," Bstudis UniyereltariB Catalans. XIII,
1928• Another instance which cites the great sizeof the
consulate at Palermo, and mentions specifically that several!
foreign merchant a' quarter, and some, such as at Nice, for
instance, occupied probably no more than a single building
with living quarters on the second and third floors, over
the warehouse and offices occupying the first and part of
the second stoiy.
The Catalan consul was ultimately responsible for
all of the properly which stood within the consulate proper.
Whether or not he was responsible for the private dwellings
of the princely merchants, when those stood outside the
area of the alfondic. is very difficult to determine. Cer
tainly there exist examples of merchants who were indemni
fied by the local consul because of damage to their properly
caused by other Catalan merchants or caused as a result of
anger or hostllily engendered among the locals by the
actions or activities of another Catalan. A rich Catalan
merchant of Genoa, for example, lost several rooms from his
house and suffered the theft of paintings and jewels in the
early fifteenth century as the result of mob action in
Genoa, but he was recompensed by the Catalan consul, though
the consul himself was most probably reimbursed either by
streets ran through the consular area is a letter from the
consul Bartomeu to the *1 atT-adoa regarding civil disturb
ances in which Catalans have been involved and which
involved street fighting. He then mentions the difficulties
of restraining such problems when several major streets in
the gothic quarter orose through the consular property.
Cartas Com. Orig., folio 179 verso.
87
the city council of Benoa or of Barcelona itself. Since
this particular merchant was intimately involved in a "dip
lomatic” venture for the city government of Barcelona, his
good will and his further efforts undoubtedly were well
*fl
worth securing even at the cost of indemnification. It
is certain however, that the consul was responsible for the
personal safety of the Catalan merchants under his charge,
at least those who were known to him. He was also fully
accountable for the good repair and the safety of the build-
~lngs which formed the basic consular complex, the court,
the offices, the storehouses, and the bartering and banking
areas. The letters empowering the consuls to assume their
duties indicate that the consuls were to have jurisdiction
and control over the physical facilities of the consulate,
as well as having responsibility for their care, defense,
and upkeep.
L.1
Cartas Com. Orig., folio 217-217 verso. The mer
chant was Pranclsoo Grlmosachs, whose wealth came from his
dealing in spices and fabrics, and the exportation of
glassware: "We are not told the nature of his mission, but
it is clear that he was one of those merchants who helped
the consul in the never ending and delicate task of main
taining friendly relations with the Genoese.
^2Por example, 1HM, L. Cons., 1301-1302. folio llv-
12, giving the new consul at Trapani the right to judge and
punish all Infractions of the maritime codes whieh applied
to the physical facilities of the consulado ultr«»Tl«n-
See also AHM, L. Cons., 1333? folio 5o verso, regarding
the consulate at Seville.
881
The consul was assisted in his duties toy a lieu
tenant consul, whose duties were similar to, though not so
responsible nor so comprehensive as those of the regular
chief consul. The lieutenant consul was often appointed toy
the consul himself, the local merchants toeing ashed to
consult in his appointment and confirmation. The lieuten
ant consul served out the term of the elected consul if the
consul died, was incapacitated, or simply decided, as some
times happened, to absent himself from his post in order to
pursue some financial or romantic business of his own.
The lieutenant consul was also sometimes responsible for
the military preparedness of the merchant community and
for the defense of the Ionia and the barrio itself in
^AHM, Iletr. Clos., folio 157 cerso. The magis
trates of Barcelona wrote to the lieutenant of the consu
late of the Catalans in Venice, concerning routine finan
cial matters, and confirming his appointment at the same
time. He had been appointed toy the regular consul,
Verran Llotorero, who unfortunately died shortly after this
official action. The lieutenant consul therefore assumed
the duties of the regular consul, though he remained offi
cially the lieutenant consul, as later letters indicate,
and he was subject to immediate recall and replacement as
soon as a new consul could toe found.
"his was normally true, but as was pointed out in
note **3, the lieutenant was still theoretically subject to
recall and replacement at the wishes of the TIM* "^f^dos of
Barcelona, though usually the city council simply left the
lieutenant consul at this post as long as he did a credits*
ble job, and more especially if his consulate was not one
with critical diplomatic or commercial implications.
if5
general. It is difficult to determine exactly what is
implied by these duties, for surely the merchants could not
hare been expected to have attained any high degree of
military ability, or is it reasonable to assume that the
facilities of the consulate would have been subjected to
any large scale military involvement. Usually, the lieu
tenant consul was probably supposed to supervise the self
defensive measures of the Catalan community in case of
local turbulence and unrest. The Catalans were extraordi
narily capable of Inciting local Irritation. That they
mastered it to the point of artistry is testified by riots
against the Catalan merchants in Constantinople, Athens,
Sardinia, and Alexandria.
The lieutenant consul served out the normal term of
the consul whom he had to replace. This generally meant
that he served no more than a year or two. If the consul's
term at that particular consulate was longer, then usually
the city government would make some arrangement to provide
a new consul, stepping over the lieutenant consul in the
process. That the city government at Barcelona took little
I*. Vert.. II, 35*f-355 verso. Also AHM,
Lletr. Clos., folio 05 verso, contains a letter to the
lieutenant consul at Palermo, Caspar de Cassage, concerning
the storing and issuing of arms for the defense of the mer
chant community. The lieutenant was supposed to heed the
instructions and to write immediately if his arsenal
appeared to be lacking in anything of importance.
interest in the qualifications or abilities of the lieuten
ant consuls was witnessed) of course, by the fact that the
consul himself nominated his assistant from among whatever
local talent was available or willing to serve. There is
no evidence that in the case of a lieutenant consul taking
over the unexpired term of his principal that he was
allowed to hold the job for life. Too many merchants
wanted the lucrative consular posts for them to be wasted
upon lieutenant consuls of unknown credentials) with per-
sonal allegiances to the area in which they served.
Is usual, the city council wished to keep as strong
a hold as possible upon consular affairs and personnel) and
the continued support of a local merchant of unproven abil
ity was not calculated to achieve that goal. While it was
true that merchants from the native community were some
times appointed to the post of consul of the Catalans) as
with the Medici) it was also true that these rare appoint
ments were men of supreme ability, with wide influence
among the Catalans, and in a position to make a positive,
valuable contribution to the commercial success of the
H -6
See, for example, IBM, L. Vert.. II, 273 verso
and 311-all verso. In these two instances, both involving
the consulate at fiagusa, the lieutenant was Informed that
he could no longer operate as consul, and in the second
instance he was actually fired as lieutenant consul as
well, which tends to re-enforce the idea that the consuls
liked to appoint their lieutenants personally, perhaps by
way of reward.
Catalan merchants In their city. The lieutenant consuls,
generally men of lesser social and economic status than the
consuls themselves, were not considered qualified to repre-
sent the Catalan interests overseas permanently.
It is most interesting to note that the day-to-day
operation of the consulates, with the routine, quiet, often
dull duties of the consular office, should have attracted
men of the calibre— men of the status and ability, which
were in fact attracted. Most consuls were well educated
for laymen in the Middle Ages, well travelled, often former
office holders of the city government of Barcelona itself,
a high honor in the competitive mercantile soolety which
composed the city's governing class. In some instances the
consuls were men who had amassed considerable fortunes even
before they took over the lucrative consular posts, though
it was unusual that the consuls did not come back to
Barcelona far richer men than they had left, in the tradi
tion of the old Roman proconsular officers in the eastern
provinces. In the scope of their abilities and the breadth
of their knowledge and interests they were Protean men.
Some were members of the aristocracy itself, many more were
denizens of the magisterial class, omnipresent in Barcelona
in the High. Middle Ages. The alliance of these two groups
at home and abroad produced a viable city government with
the energy to govern in detail (and with a watchful eye)
tbs activities of thousands of merchants overseas. There
are two basic reasons for the attraction whieh the consular
office exercised among the best trained, most experienced
classes. The first, Is that through the consulates an
*r e*
ambitious man stood an excellent chance of becoming directly
involved in foreign affairs, perhaps even, as sometimes
happened, in the actual conduct of diplomatic relations
themselves* In Catalonia, diplomacy was highly regarded as
a demanding and highly prestigious occupation reserved for
those "best* people possessed of the leisure to undertake
it* There are several examples of severe struggles ensuing
when a diplomatic mission was under discussion in the city
V7
council* The scope for the exercise of individual talent
and initiative and for the acquisition of personal status
was great in an age of nearly personal diplomacy, conducted
by influence and status and connections* Jaime Moncada,
for example, probably took his appointment to Alexandria
from Jaime I exactly because of its diplomatic nature and
because of the connections which his family had managed to
maintain in North Africa*
^See also AHM, L. Vert*. II, 61 verso - 62 verso.
There is also a copy in Barcelona of the instruc
tions issued to En Gaspart, viscount of Castellnow* on his
mission to North Africa in 1309, in ACA, Register 315, 106,
in which there is a reference to the difficulties which
attended the appointment of this mission because of the
rivalries in Barcelona over who would be sent*
The second reason for the popularity of the consu
lar job probably lay in its financially lucrative nature.
The financial gains were by no means negligible in a society
with a relatively high standard of living for the Middle
Ages. The office of consul, with its many prerequisites
and its rewards from customs duties, from justice, and from
a wide variety of permissible excise taxes levied either by
the consul himself for some special purpose or by the manris-
trados of Barcelona must surely have appeared very attrac
tive to a rising, or even to an established, merchant family
eager to increase its revenues, provide for sons, and estab
lish excellent foreign commercial and diplomatic contacts
at the very highest levels.
The primary source of revenue for the consul was,
of course, customs duties, levied by the consul himself
against both incoming and outgoing merchandise at his port.
Some consuls, additionally, levied customs duties on inter
nal movement of goods within their area of jurisdiction,
but this practice waB abolished during the latter half of
b&
the fourteenth century as unnecessarily burdensome.
There is evidence to indicate that the first customs duties,
levied before or during the 1280 *s amounted to one dlnero
uo
This was especially true of the consulates of
Damascus and Alexandria, where the authority of the consul
extended far beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of his
alfondic and barrio, or even of his city.
9^
k9
per pound of silver of assessed valuation. Though it is
totally fruitless to try to translate these kinds of value
into modem equivalents} it would appear to amount to a
customs duty upon incoming merchandise of about one-third
of 1 per cent. This early value is known only obliquely,
for the first mention that is found of Catalan customs
duties comes in 1278, when the city of Narbonne elected a
consul to Pisa and explained that the duty of about one-
third of 1 per eent was in imitation of the "beneficent"
system already employed by the o^her commercial consulates
50
of the Catalans abroad. It may be presumed that this was
the rate which the Catalan consuls in North Africa were
charging at that time, though it could be that there were
already commercial consulates in southern Prance by this
time, which would provide good precedents.
In the East, on the other hand, the customs duties
were far higher. In Constantinople, the customs duties on
both incoming and outgoing merchandise ran 2 per cent, one
half going to the emperor's treasury and the other half
51
going to the Catalan consulate there. The consulate of
**9 ahm, L, Yearn.. II, 173* This document refers to
the consulate on Cyprus, and while it is dated 1291» it
clearly refers to an already well established and "custom
ary" situation. See also Heyd, p. ^93.
^Vai sse t- Ddvie, Hiatoire de Languedoc. Ill,
Book XVII, p. 27.
5 l
yxAHM, Perga. Munioipalea, Privilege of Aadronicus
II Paleologus. This method of supporting both the
951
Alexandria also charged a relatively high percentage In
custone duties, receiving two dine roe per silver pound
evaluation when the merchandise entered the port and two
52
dineroa whenever it left the country. Interestingly
enough, because of the power of the Catalan consulate in
Alexandria and the wide area of its authority, the two
dineroa had to be paid to the Catalan consul by any merchant
of Catalonia leaving from any part of northern. Egypt,
53
whether or not he exited through the port of Alexandria.
The relatively heavy exactions of the Catalan con
sulate of Alexandria caused serious grumblings among the
merchants who traded there, and in 1^37 the magistrates of
the city council of Barcelona wrote a sharp letter to the
consul in Alexandria condemning as illegal and Immoral this
consulate and the emperor* s treasiuy out of the same customs
duties is an interesting example of constructive cooperation,
for the late Middle Ages. The emperor, it appears, was
spared the trouble of dealing with the Catalans, whose stock
was never high in the Levant anyway. Instead, the Catalan
consul dealt with his merchants and collected the appro
priate duties and fines, which he then split with the
Imperial treasurers. It has never been investigated before,
but it could very well be that this system was at least
partially an outgrowth of the poor reputation of the
Catalans in the empire. The term NCatalanH was often a
most abusive epithet to hurl at one's enemies and opponents.
52AHM, Caja I, Consules Ultranarinos•
^3ahm, Caja I, Consules Ultramarinos. See also
Capmany, Col. Lip., Humber *H9.
96
5 if
high rate of customs duties. The magistrates were on
record as believing that this rate of taxation represented
no gain to the Catalans of the area, and in fact stood to
depress the level of trade with Horth Africa, not to
55
encourage it. The duties were halved after this official
protest. By the end of the fifteenth centuxy, the official
customs rate at Alexandria was 1 per cent of both incoming
and outgoing articles, collected only at the port of
Alexandria, and exclusive of articles made of gold or
silver or pastes thereof, whose customs values were placed
at one-half of 1 per cent, whether the gold and silver had
56
been converted to money or not.
^AHM, Caja I, Consules Ultramarines.
^AHM, Crides Originales, 1^5, Humber 1^3. The
magistrates further explained their position in a letter of
lMf5 to the consul Luis Ferrer. The letter concerns itself
with the affairs of several Catalan merchants, including
Luis Servent, Franci Luca, and the consul himself. The
consul was accused of having failed to give the other two
satisfaction in mediating a contractual dispute. The
letter also includes a statement concerning previous customs
exactions•
^Capmany, Col. Bin.. Humber **19. The letter reads
in part: "neo non reapondeant, solvant et satisfaoiant
vobis dicto domino Jaoobo Yiastrasa consul! de vlgintl
quatuor pro centenario llbrarum, reciplendo due a turn
veneocie bonl aurl et justi ponderia pro viginti quiratia;
et ulteriua respondeant vobla de duodecim quiratia pro cen-
tario llbrarum toolus monete auri et argenti, et platina et
in maca et alias de to to auro et argento, extimando due a turn
pro quindeeim solidis et amplius extraneus qui non sit
vassalus dictl serenissimi domini nostri regls Aragonum,"
etc. See also AHM, L. Vert.. I, 369*370.
The arrangement in Sicily, on the other hand, indi
cates a greater degree of flexibility than any encountered
so far. The consul was given a fixed scale of about 1 per
cent on both merchandise and gold and silver, a high enough
tariff to begin with, but the power of the consul, and pre
sumably of his pocketbook as well, was then enhanced by an
ordinance in 13^ - 1, giving the consul powers to examine the
cargoes of all Catalan ships coming to the isles. From this
examination the consul was supposed to determine the fair
market value of the goods, and to that figure apply his
1 per cent duties, collectable, in the case of Sicily,
57 „
before the merchant could even get off his ship. This
ordinance, which was designed for the better regulation of
commerce on the island of Sicily, must at least have been
capable of lending itself to rather grave financial exac-
58
tions on the part of the consuls of Sicily. The ordinance
of 13*tl also gave the consul the power to determine how much
money the merchants operating in his area might require for
their work, based upon the oonsul's own experiences in that
^These rules exist as an insert in the Hibre de
Cogsolat -fat.* on*. 1592), folios 107-
yvThe consul would have had no difficulty in over-
assessing the values of cargoes entering on Catalan bottoms,
as was subsequently proved by consuls in Cyprus, Bhodes,
and Damascus. See, for example, 1HM, Hetr. Clos., folio
66 verso; 1HM, lib. Cons. 13o3“1393» folios 19-20.
area. In other words, the consol was most unwisely given
the power to regulate the amount of specie which the mer
chant could enter with or employ in hie trading operations
59
while operating within the consular area. This ordinance
was abolished shortly thereafter, after a considerable vol
ume of protest had arisen over its enforcement, protest
which had reached the city magistrates. In fairness to the
consuls of Sicily, however, it must be remembered that they
were operating in an intensely competitive milieu, forced
to compete with the nearer merchant communities of Italy
who could afford to offer their own consulates much fuller
support and assistance. If we compare the rates of customs
duties charged by the Catalans with those charged by the
Genoese and Pisans, we find that the Catalan duties were
60
approximately half of those levied by the Italians.
During the fourteenth century the customs system in
Sicily was gradually revised until a more equitable system
was evolved. Each ship, when it sailed from the ports of
Sicily, paid five tarines (small gold coins) for each deck
of the ship. This Insured a steady, if modest, source of
revenue, and made for a more equitable distribution of the
tax burden. In addition, each sailor aboard each ship paid
^AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., Deliberatianes, folios 63
verso and 6*t.
6°D'Olwer, Exnansio. pp. ^0-^3.
one carlino (a snail copper coin of indeterminate value,
6l
but probably of a value about one twentieth of the taurine).
Interestingly, however, if the value of these combined dues
exceeded the value of six ounces of gold, then the value of
the merchandise was computed and taxed, and the personal
taxes were then not collected. The oatrdn or owner of the
ship, whether an individual or a corporation never paid
these personal duties for his personnel. The sailors and
masters themselves were responsible for them out of whatever
salaries and profits they accumulated during the voyage.^2
As well as the duties levied by the consuls for
general revenue and for the support of the normal adminis
trative routines of the consulate, the consul could also
levy duties to fulfill specific needs or to finance special
projects. At Trapani special customs duties were used to
erect a hostel for the benefit of merchants and other
Catalan travellers staying only briefly in the city and for
those merchants who travelled the grinding regular circuit
of the island. The consul was expected to provide hospltal-
ity for pilgrims, travelling clergy, distinguished visitors,
and other Catalans who occasionally visited the island. At
the same tine there appears to have been a regular bloc of
^ Llibre de Consolat. folios 107-108
6a10. 1br« de Consolat. folios 107-108
of mere haute who simply could not transact all of their
business as sedentary merchants at Trapani. These merchants!
roamed all over Sicily and southern Italy, trading and bar
tering and engaging in banking operations on an itinerant
basis. They needed a place to rest and work on their infre
quent visits to their main base at Trapani. Additionally,
there existed a group of Catalan merchants associated with
no particular city community abroad who also roamed the
island in their search for new goods and new areas of trade.
These men also needed a place to stay when they visited
Trapani from time to time, and because all of these men
were or had been residents of Catalonia, they came under the
jurisdiction of the Catalan consuls overseas.^
The consul at Trapani, therefore, levied an extra
customs duty, of what amount it is not known, but it
annually netted five ounces or more of gold for the specific
purpose of supporting a hostel in Trapani. The consul at
Trapani had to explain this new duty to any merchant who
cared to know about it at least three days before the mer
chant left the city, during which time the merchant had to
^3fhe problem of pilgrims and itinerant Catalan mer
chants was finally solved in the early decades of the four
teenth century, when the city council of Barcelona decided
that all traders from Catalonia and Aragon were entitled to
the aid and hospitality of the oonsulate. See, for example,
AHM, L. Vert.. II, 237 verso, Pergs. Municipal, HI, 113*
ll*f verso.
pay his share of this special impost.
The consul also had another method of providing for
this special purpose of supporting the hostel. He had the
duty of seeing to the effects of those Catalan merchants
who died friendless on the island and of satisfying the
relatives of the dead man and any patrons and other creditors
he might have had. They, in other words, were to be satis
fied first from his possessions in order to clear up any
outstanding debts owed them by the dead merchant. But the
consul, from the goods of the deceased not paid to creditors
and relatives, could levy a certain sum of goods or money
65
towards his building program. ' It is quite interesting
that this hind of charitable work; was conducted under the
general auspices of the consul, and seldom under those of
the priest who normally made up a part of the staff of the
Sicilian consulates. That the consuls here, and in other
instances, had to levy duties for such work is explicable
in two ways. The merchants were quite parsimonious, often
to the point of meanness. In addition, many of them resid
ing in any given consulate were at best transients, staying
^AHM, Manual Humber 2, Series XIII.
65
AHM, Beg. Ctral Cons., folio k2 verso. Also see
AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio ll verso, dealing with compen
sation of a merchant who had been forced to contribute to
the consular improvement program at an apparently exorbitant
rate.
102
[
only a few days or at most a few weeks, with no permanent
stake in the physical or charitable facilities of any one
of the many consulates they might visit in the course of
their commercial careers.
The consulate at Damascus had an even more compli
cated financial system than that of Sicily, and the consular
office there was a plum, eagerly sought and difficult even
for the best families of Barcelona to obtain. The emolu- •
meats of the office were quite good, but the city council
of Barcelona often preferred to have as consul there some
one who knew the area from long experience, and occasion
ally, as in Italy, even picked a native, though the few
religious scruples of the city council usually ruled this
out in Arabic areas. The volume of Levantine trade during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries insured a steady
income to the consul from customs duties alone. For ships
and cargoes which arrived at Damascus directly from
Barcelona and which had made no other stops, there was a
preferred customs rate of about thirty dineroa per each
three hundred pounds of cargo, either merchandise or
66 „
money. This duty was levied against the signed, sealed
67
bill of lading from Barcelona. On the other hand, if the
^AHM, Lib. Cons., 19”20 verso.
^?AHM, Lib. Cons., 19-20 verso.
vessel from Barcelona decided simply to dock and not dis-
68
charge Its cargo it was exempted from all customs duties*
Further, since Qyprus was part of the jurisdictional area
of the Damascene consulate, a merchant who wished to sell
in Cyprus had to pay the same customs duties as at Damascus,
on the same basis of a sealed bill of lading from
69
Barcelona. If he then chose to sell his goods or part of
them in Cyprus and journey to Damascus to trade his remain
ing goods or to use whatever money he had made in Cyprus
for further buying, then again he had to present his origi
nal bill of lading (opened, this time, of course) from
Barcelona and pay full customs duties on the goods he had
taken to Cyprus. If he were simply trading his way around
the area and had not come to Cyprus nonstop, then he was
subject at each consulate to whatever duties applied in
that particular area, and did not need pay the special
^®AHM, Lib. Cons., 19-20 verso.
69
AHM, Lib. Cons., 19-20 verso. "Item, que si
algun me reader o alt re persona partent de B&rchlnona posara
robes an la ilia de Xipre, vullas que la nan vage primer a
Baruth, vulles primer en Xlpre e aquelles robes vendra en
Xipre e venades, 90 que dfaquelles robes exira, trametra en
earner? o en cambl esmerqar en Do mas; que en aquest cas lo
mereader o altra persona sla tenguda de pagar lo consolat
segons lo manifest de Barchinona, 90 es, segons que hanran
costat lee robes en Barchinona. 2Ss entes empero, que si lo
dit mereader, o latra persona treatsjara la moneda de Xipre
en Domas, que per aytants vegades con la tretejara, sla
tengut de pagar lo dit consol."
70 1
impost* upon hi* arrival at Cyprus or Damascus. Both
hinds of merchants had to take whatever money they made on
Cyprus or Damascus with them, or else each time any of it
left the countzy hound for their hands, either directly or
indirectly, after they had left the area themselves, that
71
money was again subject to a healthy customs duty.
In the later fourteenth century, the system was
simplified somewhat, in that a flat rate of twenty dlppraw
was charged on any Catalan or Argonese bark which discharged
cargo at any of the ports of the Levantine consulates except
Damascus itself and Cyprus, where the older system continued
to apply until lMf3. In that year the ziuardos (magistrates)
of Mallorca wrote a comradely letter to their colleagues in
Barcelona, complaining about the exactions of the Catalan
consulate at Bhodes and asking that the whole question of
72
duties in that pert of the Mediterranean be reviewed. The
consul then wrote to the city government of Barcelona
explaining that he had understood that he was entitled to
emoluments amounting to V per cent duties cn all cargoes.^3
70This may be deduced from the absence of any men
tion in other consular records preserved in the Archivo
Municipal of any speoial duties or fees paid in this situa
tion*
7^-AHM, Lib. Cons., 19*20 verso.
^2AHM, Lletres Communes, lMf3.
AHM, He tree Communes, lM+3.
105
Unfortunately there exists only a reference to the contents
of the city government1 s reply to this. Apparently the
consul was instructed that the matter was being taken under
advisement and that in the meantime he was to go ahead
collecting the b per cent duty which he was already collect
ing.
The consul at Damascus had sources of income other
than simply straight customs duties. Throughout most of the
fourteenth century he seems to have enjoyed a virtual
monopoly of the victualling trade for the ships and for the
consular buildings themselves. The consul was sharply
taken to task in 1386 by the magistrates of Barcelona for
what can only be described as a medieval version of stock
jobbing in food stuffs, especially wine. He appears to
have had direct access to the wine growers of the region
and to have bought the finished wine in large quantities
75
directly from the vineyard operators. The council decided
that the consul of Damascus should, by and large, keep out
of active business dealings. His wine trade was permanently-
choked off by this directive * "• • .No vendra ne fara
vendre vin a company sues, no a alguna altra persona dins
7*f
The note to the effect that there was a reply at
all is contained among the great number of marginal and
bottom glosses found on nearly all of the documents in this
series.
75AHM, Manual 3, Series Eli.
76
la case o habltacio on lo dit consol estara." The con
sul's role in the clothing trade was also curtailed, and
he was made responsible for enforcing the standards pre-
77
scribed by the magistrates of Barcelona.
The customs duties of the Afrioan consulates were
somewhat higher than those which have been examined thus
far. For the consul in Tunis, policy as regards revenues
from customs duties and other imposts was more clearly
defined from the date of foundation. It had to be, in
fact, for the provisions governing the consulate of Tunis
were an integral part of an important trade and friendship
treaty. In a treaty of 1285, reconfirmed in essentially
similar terms in 1299, the customs duties are spelled out
this way: all Catalan merchants had to pay a 10 per cent
duty on all merchandise other than gold or silver. If the
merchant entered with precious metals he was required to
pay one-half of the accustomed duty, or 5 per cent. Further
if a merchant of the Corona de Aragdn came to the territory
76AHM, lib. Cons. 1383-1393, 19-20 verso.
77AHM, Lib. Cons. 1383-1393, 19-20 verso. "Si lo
moxer de oxer o alt re qualsevol persona prendre o fare pen-
dre en l'oxer de DomaB o fora l'oxer e algun meroader o
sotsees de senyor rey, de que lo dit consol haja dret de
consolat, algunes robes; que lo dit consol, si request sera
per aquell o aquells de qui lea robes seran, haja a fer
tota la sue punya que equalise robes 11 sien to made s, e si
mester sera ne request, ne haja anar devant Melich Almara o
devant tota altre persona, per qui lo dit mercader puscha
oobrar les ditea robes . * *
io7
of King Miralmonmeni and neither bmight nor sold any mer- !
chandise nor attempted to import nor sell gold or silver,
78
then that merchant owed nothing in duties.
Here the merchant from the Corona de Aragdn was
placed in an essentially favored position in relationship
to other merchants. He was allowed, as in the consulates
all along the African coast, to enter and refurbish his
ship and his supplies without the necessity of paying cus
toms duties. But as we have seen from the treaties of 1285
and 1299, the Catalans were given a favorable consideration
when it came to paying duties to either the consul or the
port authorities, for to neither did they have to pay any
79
duty if their trading adventures were unsuccessful.
By 1306, however, the King of Aragon was again hav
ing his difficulties with the rulers of North Africa, and
felt the need for new negotiations. This time the subject
of money and duties was specifically raised in the prelimi
nary correspondence between Jaime II and Mahomet
Amiramuslemin. The Catalan merchants were being overcharged
^ACA, Register **7, 81-82 verso. Tinanoial data
occupy almost a quarter of the long pages of this treaty,
which the king first signed at Coll de Panlssars in June of
1285* Besides customs duties, the treaty deals with the
financial responsibilities of each party to the treaty in
providing armed galleys, presumably to be used against
other Moorish powers, the Castilllans, and the Sevillian
Pirates•
^ACA, Register ^7, 81-82 verso.
In the port. The king's envoy was given instructions to
solve this problem. Essentially the envoy, Samdn de
Villanova, was instructed to effect some reduction on the
high duties levied against Catalan merchants who engaged
only in small scale operations in the area. The King of
Aragon appears to have received the distinct impression
that his opposite number was making a considerable extra
profit from the Catalans and Aragonese who visited his
shores.
These earlier provisions were amplified in another
trade treaty, this time in 131V between the King of Aragon,
Jaime II, and the King of Tunis, Abu Jahia Zaocaria. Jaime
did not inherit the competence or the rugged amiability of
his illustrious namesake, but his knowledge of commercial
affairs and his determination were nearly as great. The
Moorish prince had already shown himself an able commercial
antagonist, especially in his dealings with the consulate
at Almeria. Therefore, the smoothness with which this
treaty was negotiated and the advantages granted the
Catalans and more especially to the Catalan consulate are
somewhat surprising. The treaty dealt with the rights and
privileges to be accorded the nationals of each state when
trading in the other's territories, and had a number of
specific olanses regarding the general situation of the con
sulate at Tunis and the role which it was to be allotted
109'
in future commercial relations between the two mercantile
+ + 80
states•
The passages of the most interest at this point,
however, established the conditions upon which the consul
of the Catalans at Tunis could legally collect customs
duties for his own support and for the maintenance and
repair of the consular facilities, ill merchants of the
territories governed by the King of Aragon had to pay the
accustomed 10 per cent duty on all merchandise entering the
port. The exceptions to this rule were again gold and
silver. Those who were part of the crews of ships, or the
owners or masters of ships, who came to the port expressly
for the purpose of refitting or of making repairs either to
the hull or the simple standing rigging were required to
pay only a 5 per cent duty on their transactions, but only
if the transaction took place within the confines of the
consular facilities and under the eyes of consular officers
81
who had duly noted the proceedings.
8oACA, Register 337 , 201-202 verso. A copy of this
document also exists in ACA, Register 2*t, 116.
"Primerament, que com lo rey de Tunic, segons la
arlnenca que fo feta entre ell e Bn Ramon de vilanova,
cavalier miesatge del rey d'Arago, li aja assignt la meytat
del dret que .Is cathalans paguen an Tunic per oerta quanti-
tat de mondea, com ell mateix sab, de la qual meytat com
sia de pooa quantitat start ne seria satisfet; que .Is
cathalans hi paguen, e ells auran breuaent la paga e el rey
de Tunic se'n sera allevyat."
81
ACA, Register 337, 201-202 verso.
The frequency of piracy and storne in those North
African waters made this an eminently sensible point of
view, and the Moors were given the same privileges in
Catalan waters in relation to their own consulates. In a
similar category of customs exemptions at Tunis were those
ships which ooasted the area for a living and for one reason
or another stopped in at Tunis without attempting to make
any commercial contracts or sales* This stipulation must
have annoyed the consul at Tunis considerably, as these
coasting vessels probably entered frequently and may well
have used some or all of the consular facilities during
their brief stays. Probably, too, their crews and captains
were considered less desirable than the affluent merchants
who formed the backbone of the foreign community, and the
Catalan consul cannot be blamed for not having desired
their unremunerative presence.
Besides the exemptions for sailors and for ship
repairs, there were special arrangements for those who came
with a cargo of either barley (especially that used in
brewing) or with red wheat. Merchants with these cargoes
did not pay the full 10 per cent duty, but only another
"accustomed" duty whose value has not been found to this
* * 2ACA, Begister 337, 201-202 verso. A similar
reference can be found in ACA, Register 337, 360-361 verso.
A letter discussing an embassy to be exchanged between
Ill
Several of the documents for the fourteenth century
Indicate that the consul had an extra source of revenue.
Some of the tribute which was paid to the kings of Aragon
was funnelled into the coffers of the consulates, especi
ally in the case of North Africa: "Item, que el dit
Miralmomenl sia tengut de donar cascun ayn a nos damunt dit
rey d'Arago e de Sicilia, o a qui nos manarem, lo tribut de
Sicilia, lo qual tribut es de XXXIII mllle CCCXXXIII
bisancios e terca." It is known from a letter from
Jaime II to the consul at Alexandria that at least a part
of this tribute was diverted to assist the revenues of the
consul there.
In addition to customs duties and to the occasional
grant of some small portion of the king's tribute from the
nation in which a consulate existed, the consuls in some
areas were also paid a regular salary. This is interesting
beoause it is a practice which certainly was far from
common during the Middle Ages, especially as early as the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A letter of 1303 from
the conaellerea of Barcelona to the consul of Palermo deals
with the subject of back salary for a previous oonsul, who
Jaime II and the ruler of Tremcdn, Abderrahmen Abu Taxflm.
®3This i8 found in ACA, Register **7, 81-82 verso, a
treaty of peace and commerce concluded between Pedro III
and Miralmomeni Bohap of Tunis.
had been chosen to serve on an interim basis until Huguet de
Cambrils, the new consul, could get to Palermo and assume
his post. How much money the interim consul was owed is
not mentioned, but the city government of Barcelona appar
ently felt that his salary should have been paid for by the
merchants of Palermo, and they indicated that the new con
sul was being held responsible for finding some way of meet
ing the demand for back: pay. This document clearly refers
to the interim consul's salary. The fact that the interim
consul could ask for a specific quantity of money indicates
8*f
that he must have been paid a regular wage.
Inother interesting source of consular revenues
i
resulted from the halting of piracy by Sicilllans, Genoese
and others. It appears that the consul, if he could demon
strate that he had taken effective action against pirates
operating in his waters, was allowed a certain percentage
of the goods confiscated from captured pirate vessels. This
situation was somewhat complicated by the frequency with
which Catalan goods and stores turned up on such vessels,
but the magistrates ruled in 1353 that even in oases such
as this, where Catalans were affected, the consul still had
a right to a certain (unspecified) percentage of the goods
85
recovered, or of their value in money. The system worked
^AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 120 verso.
85AHM, L. Vert.. II, 273-27**.
1131
very much like the English prise courts of the Napoleonic
period, in vhich owners of the recovered merchandise often
stood to take a loss after prize money had been awarded.
Throughout this chapter, the magistrates of
Barcelona have come up again and again, their letters to
the consuls usually being the spur that set the consular
machinery into ponderous motion* Clearly, from the number
of documents vhich have been preserved, these magistrates
were often concerned with consular problems. It was their
responsibility, following the grants to them by Jaime I of
the right of electing consuls, to administer these far
flung consulates soundly and justly. There can be no doubt
that they regarded the responsibility as purely their own,
and always insisted upon their absolute right to govern the
consulates in their own way and without any outside inter
ference •
The key, of course, to the control of the consu
lates abroad lay in the power to appoint and to remove from
office the consuls themselves. Only under the centralizing
rule of Pedro IT did the city magistrates of Barcelona run
up against any serious opposition from the king in the
appointment of consuls. Documents vhich cover a period
from 13^1 to 1352 indicate that during this time Pedro
attempted to usurp the powers of the city magistrates of
Barcelona to appoint consuls abroad. In June of 13*+1
l l V I
Pedro IV wrote a letter to Alaramo Salvatge, oitizen of
Genoa, whom the king had recently appointed consul of the
Catalans In Genoa. The city magistrates had registered a
firm protest to this appointment, since they had not even
been consulted and the king was forced, in this instance,
86
to revoke the appointment. The king continued to try to
appoint consules ultramarinos in spite of the opposition of
the Catalans. A letter from Perpignan of March 17, 1351,
indicates that the king had named a number of consuls over
the years after 13^1.
86AHM, L. Vert.. I, 372-373. After citing in full
the provisions of Jaime I, issued in 1266, concerning the
elections of consuls abroad, the document then goes on:
MDignaremur oommissionem eandem de benlgnitate
regia ac secundum juatitiam revocare. Nos vero supllcations
ipsa benigne suscepts, volentes civitatem predictam
Barehinone et habitatoree ejusdem in suls libertatibus at que
concesslonibus regallbus controvere; tenors presentls care
nostra commissionem prescriptam dicto Alarano de officio
consulatus predict! fact am et concessam quocumque modo
caseamus anuullamus ac penitus revooamus et cassam, nullam
ac revocatam decemimus hujus scripti nostrl eerie et eciam
junclanus. Inhlbentes tenors presentis carte nostre dicto
Alarano. quod vigors dicta nostre commissionia sa in all quo
minima intromit tat, quinimmo ad eadem cesset protixms et
desistat. Mandamus eciam universls et singulis gentibus
nostris cujusvis nacionls sint, ad dictam civitatem Janue
seu ejus districtus appellenteur, quod revocacionem hujus-
modi observando non ad dictum Alarnum, set ad ilium, qui
pro universitate diets civitatis Barchinone pro consuls
lpsorum in dicta oivitate Janue positus alve electua fuerit,
recusum habeant ipsumque pro consuls eorum habeant et
teneant, eique pereant, obediant atqua repondeant de iis
de qui bus consul! Cathalanorum in dicta civltate Janue
pereri, obediri ac responderi est actenus aconsuetum. et
non contraveniant nec aliquem contravenire permillant
allqua racione."
The king had directly appointed consuls in Genoa,
Plea, Corsica, and Perpignan itself, hut he denounced as
baseless the charge that he was attempting to undermine the
prerogatives of the magistrates of Barcelona. The letter
goes on to indicate that the Barcelonans could expect fur
ther difficulties, however, despite the kingfs protesta
tions, for the -luradoa of Mallorca had asked him to inter
vene directly in the affairs of the Catalan consulate there.
The Mall ore ana claimed that since the island was an integral
part of Catalonia it should be self-governing in all mercan
tile affairs, with the consulate there directly under
87
Mallorean control.
The city magistrates of Barcelona protested this
point of view so vigorously that the king and the Mall ore an
officials were forced to back down. The conflict ended in
February of 1352, when Pedro specifically revoked the
nomination of Matheo Dalando as consul of the Catalans in
Trapani, an appointment which the kind had made the year
before without consulting the city government of Barcelona.
The king formally admitted his error in this matter and
reconfirmed the exclusive author!ty of the magistrates of
Barcelona to appoint, remove, and direct the consuls
87
AHM, L. Vert., II, 17»f.
116
88
overseas. There could be no division of authority con
cerning consular affairs, and the magistrates held firstly
to this point of view throughout the turbulences of the
chaotic fifteenth century, until the centralising efforts
of the Catholic nonarchs put an end to this municipal
independence and authority.
The city of Barcelona generally attempted to wield
wisely and with care the power which It had in the area of
consular control. Commerce was the mainstay of the
Barcelonan economy, and the consuls were the key links with
the merchants who created the city's great prosperity dur
ing the High Middle Ages. The magistrates occasionally
88AHM, 1. Vert.. II. 319 verso - 320.
"tfos Petrus ... viso quodam privilegio illue-
trissimi domini regis Jacobi, abbavit nostri reeolende
memorle, vobis dllectis et fidelibus nostrie consillariis
et probis hominibus civitatis Barchlnone indulto, per quod
vobis per sum exltit concessa porestae ponendi et eligendl
consulem vel consules, quem et quo a volueritis, in partibus
ultramarinis et in terra de Romania et in qulbuslibet mills
partibus, in qui bus navigaverlnt naves vel ligna civitatis
dam dicta. Ideo quod dudum immemores privilegil memorati,
offioium consulatus Cathalanorum et aliarum gentiun nos-
trarum ad civitatem Trapane deolinacium qua vis causa,
fideli nostro Mathso D&lando civi Tr&pane cum carta nostra
sigillo nostro pendent! munlta ... durians comittendum,
tenendum et regendum per eum vel ejua ydoneum subatitutum,
dummodo alius consul ex comissione nostra inlbl non exls-
teret; comlsslonem proxime die tan ex debito justlcia et ad
supplicacionem humlllum propterea noble factam, hujus eerie
revocantes, electum vel ellgendum per nos in oonsulem diets
civitatis, juxta tenorem dlcti vobis privilegil indultl, ex
certa soiencia conflrmamus.N See also letter of Pedro xT to
the city council of Barcelona dated August 15, 1359* in
which the king revoked all orders and provisions which con
travened the chapters governing the Consul ado del Mar of
Mallorca. ACA, Register 1167, 2^1.
117
i
used their power to panieh or eren to remove from office a
consul or consular employee whose conduct compromised or
injured Catalan interests in other lands. Bad conduct, or
even merely suspicious conduct, could draw the magisterial
89
wrath upon the hapless consul. In Capmany*s rather quaint
hut charming phrase the consul of Saona was "separated from
his employment" in 1393 for financial misconduct and profi
teering. In l1 * 78, towards the close of our period, the
magistrates removed the consul of the Catalans in Genoa at
the request of the Catalan shipowners and captains who
90
operated in Genoese waters. This right of the city gov
ernment to remove or punish erring consuls had been specifi
cally granted even in the earliest documents related to the
consulates abroad, but these powers were reconfirmed in
1^3^, lWt, and 1^73* These reconfirmations occurred in
each case because of attempts of consuls overseas to appeal
some important decision taken by the magistrates of the
91
home government in regard to their consulate.
Consellers, Series I, Beg. Lletres 1393»
Number t.
9°AHM, CC lWf, 12. This document also concerns
itself with a number of new encroaohnents by the Aragonese
kings in the area of the consulates overseas.
^AHM, "Bubrica de Bruniquer," III, folio 90.
_ CHAPTER III
THE CONSULATE OP THE CATALANS AT PALERMO
Haring examined the origins of the office of consul
ultramajHnn. the foundations of the major consulates over
seas, and the general areas of responsibility of the consul
while at his post, it is now time to look in greater detail
at the day-to-day, year-by-year operation of one such con
sulate • Because of its strategic importance to Catalan
commerce, and the relative abundance of documentation which
we still) possess regarding its operation for more than two
centuries, the busy Catalan consulate at Palermo will pro
vide us with an appropriate example. Of the flourishing
Sicilian consulates, Palermo was located nearest to the
home city of Barcelona and so was ever under the watchful
scrutiny of the oonaellerea of the city of Barcelona, with
the result that a continuous stream of letters and direc
tives went to the consuls of Palermo by fast ship, and they,
in turn, could reply quickly and at length to the letters
of the city officials. The correspondence, therefore,
tends to deal with more specific, concrete issues than the
letters to and from other, more distant, consulates, where
118
119
problems had been argued and solutions discovered long
before a guiding answer could be reaeived from Barcelona*
Thus, the documentation in the Archive Municipal for the
consulate at Palermo is of greater value than that for many
other areas.
This chapter falls logically into two distinct sec
tions. The first part deals with the affairs of the consu
late of Palermo from the 1280 *s until 13*+5* a period of
ruggedly individualistic and independent consuls who were
guided by their own acquisitive instincts and their own
knowledge of local conditions, with few requests for advice
or assistance from Barcelona. The second part of this
chapter marks the growing dependence of the overseas consu
lates upon the Council of One Hundred at Barcelona. The
men who administered the consulate of Palermo after 13*+5
were less independent in their actions, relied more heavily
upon the authority of Barcelona, and more frequently
requested advice and instructions. The later consuls were
seldom as colorful personally as those who occupied the
post before the middle of the fourteenth century.
The economic strength of the merchant community
residing at Palermo also makes this consulate of great
interest for this study. Capmany has estimated that
Palermo possessed more Catalan wealth and influence in
residence than almost any other consulate of the Catalans
120'
1 '
outside the Iberian peninsula. The number of Catalans
residing there often exceeded a thousand, some of them per
manent overseas representatives of Barcelonan companies.
There appear to have been fewer of the independent merchant
2
princes than in Venice, Genoa, or Alexandria. The chief
reason for this is that the island of Sicily was under
Aragonese (hence Catalan) domination for nearly a century
and a half, beginning in 1283 with the invasion by the
Aragonese forces of Pedro III and ending in l*fl6. It was
therefore feasible, in Sicily, to operate mercantile enter
prises directly from a home office in Barcelona, an easy
journey by boat. There were, of course, many Catalans who
did reside in Palermo for the purpose of operating their
own independent enterprises and these merchants most fre
quently utilized and required the services of the Catalan
consulate of Palermo.
The consulate of Palermo was intimately involved in
the general resurgence of economic prosperity following the
reign of Charles of Anjou and the disastrous releasing of
tensions which was the Sicilian Vespers. Although
^Capmany, Memoriae Historicas. I, 28^-288.
p
Genoa and Alexandria especially appear to have
attracted men with the ability and the fortitude to amass
huge fortunes abroad. Pew of these men worked as agents of
Catalan companies onoe they had served their apprentice
ships in the mercantile world.
121
prosperity declined very briefly during the general anarchy
which followed the withdrawal of French troops, it was not
long before agriculture and industry had been reorganised,
town charters reconfirmed and strengthened, and the admin
istration of mercantile justice put upon a firmer footing
with the general introduction of the Catalan Usatges and
other mercantile codes from Barcelona.^ As 3)'Alessandro
stresses over and over, trading potential existed in Sicily.
It only required the Catalans to give it form and life.
Trade was re-established with Tunisia and with the Creek
i f
states and the Levant.
Increasing prosperity in Palermo followed as a
direct result of the renaissance of trade with the East,
for Palermo became the emporium through which the goods of
the East flowed once again to^ the increasing, voracious
markets of Spain, France, and Italy. Palermo formed a
3see especially Vicenso D'Alessandro, Politics e
Society Fella Sicilia Aragonese (Palermo, 1963), pp.215-
265. This section deals with the employment of capital in
Sicily and describes the available work force, the role of
the Aragonese (primarily Catalans) as entrepreneurs and
middle men, and the control exerted from Spain over many
features of the economic life of the island during the
period of Aragonese domination. See also Giuseppe
Zagprlo, storl. d.lla Slcllla dull* II ..polo al gloral
no.trl (Bologna, n.d,), vhiehInclude* a fin., brief
description of the political life of Medieval Sicily.
S»Alessandro, Politics e SocietA. pp. 215-230.
5«
The economic life of Sioily. from Potmri times, was
intimately connected with the island's role as middleman
between Italy and the West, between raw materials of the
122]
|
natural jumping off point for the Sicilian trade with the
West, and the Catalans soon took over the role which had
been played by Angevin and Italian merchants as the middle
men for both the finished goods of the Orient which entered
the ports of Sicily and for the agricultural products and
the raw materials which came from the fields and sunny
slopes of the Sicilian countryside.^ Then,—as in Roman
times, Sicily was a fertile and abundantly productive
granaxy for the Mediterranean world, especially for the
Catalans whose own soil yielded little of the basic staple
7
food stuffs during that period.
The import-export trade in Palermo had been handled
West and the finished goods of the Levant and especially of
Damascus and Alexandria. Alexandrian merchants shipped
many goods by way of the ports of Sicily, which represented
good economic practice, for it saved them the tedious and
largely unprofitable journey all the way to the consumers
of Spain and Prance, and allowed them to concentrate on
larger volume turnover by using the trading community of
Sicily as intermediary to distribute goods and to keep the
East supplied with goods which the Levantine merchants
could then take back home.
^Agricultural products, as shall be seen from an
analysis of the records of the consulate at Palermo were
Sicily's staple contribution to the international market
during muoh of the Middle Ages. Wheat was especially
important for the Aragonese and the Catalans, and in the
middle decades of the fifteenth century Sicily became the
largest and most important supplier of cereals for
Catalonia, especially after the disastrous and ill-advised
wars with the French and the Genoese for the control of
Sardinia.
^Capmany, Memorias Historicas. I, 286-288. See also
(2 T.l.„ ;
123
lay foreign merchants for centuries and the later thirteenthj
j
and fourteenth centuries were no exception. The Genoese
and Pisans had made Sicily a principal hase of commercial
operations since the days of the Norman kings of Sicily and
consequently they enjoyed immense commercial privileges
Q
there for their merchants and for their consulates. The
Rogers and Williams had given these merchants a high degree
of exemptions from customs duties and had permitted the
Italian merchants nearly unrestricted rights of import and
9
export. The Catalans, therefore, had to overcome the long
advantage which the Italians had held, so they began to
petition the King of Aragon, Jaime I, to grant them privi
leges similar to those still enjoyed by the Genoese and
Pisans. The results of those petitions, as shall be seen,
was the growth of Catalan influence in the area and the
establishment of a network of Catalan consulates over the
island. Of these consulates, Palermo remained the largest
and most important for the Catalans.
At first, of course, in the general reorganisation
of commerce, agriculture, and industry following the change
of dynasties in 1283* the Catalans in Sicily were generally
treated as a group. Though there is documentation for the
8
Capmany, Memoriae Historicas. I, 287*
^Capmany, Memoriae Historicas. I, 289 and ^flS-M-l?.
12*+1
i
Catalan role in Sicilian commerce beginning in 1283, it was i
not until three years later that the question of consulates
was broached, and then the king simply granted the Catalans |
the right to establish consulates on the island.1^ A
privilege of 1286, signed at Palermo on February 22 by the
young Jaime I of Sicily conceded to the Catalans the right
to elect consuls in the major cities of Sicily.11 The word
ing of this document indicates that the right to have con
suls was, in part, a reward for the services which the
Catalans had so recently rendered in the conquest of the
island from the Angevins. The Catalans were remembered for
their valor in the battles which had but recently been
fought and for the wisdom of their advice. The king even
acknowledged the debt which the royal treasury owed to the
Catalan merchants who had either directly helped to finance
the effort of conquering Sicily or whose general activities
contributed to the "peace and well being" of the Corona de
A ' 12
Aragon.
10Capmany, Col. Dip., Number *+0.
UCapmany, Col. Pin.. Number *+0.
12
^Capmany, Col. Pin.. Number *+0. The praise lie re
is particularly fulsome, for a letter from an Aragonese
monarch to his stiffnecked Catalan subjects, and one can
surmise that the Catalans must have sensed that considerable
profit was to be won when they decided to assist the Hng
in the conquest of Sicily with such presumed alacrity.
125!
The Catalan consuls were, as usual given full
authority to govern the Catalans resident on the Island,
both merchants and travellers* These newly created consuls
we*e to have the power to hear and judge civil cases and to
render judgments in all mercantile disputes which did not
specifically come under the jurisdiction of the king's
13
officials* As the island of Sicily was at least nominally
incorporated into the territories which comprised the
Corona de Aragdn, the Catalan consuls had to step very care
fully in matters of law and legal procedure, for they were
operating directly beneath the hard eyee of the royal offi
cials who followed the Aragonese armies in the conquest and
pacification of the island. Since even the profits of civil
justice were high in the Middle Ages, the Aragonese offi
cials did not want the consulates (tied to the government of
Barcelona) to usurp those areas of jurisdiction which
13
Capmany, Col* Dip*. Number *f0. As we shall have
occasion to see later, there existed considerable jealousy
between the Catalan consuls of Sicily and the regular jus
tices who belonged to the royal courts* This was an unusual
situation for the consuls to encounter, though it also
happened at Valenica, and later, on Mallorca and Minorca*
which were formally incorporated into the Corona de Aragon
after their conquest* In such oases the consul of the
Catalans had to take something of a back seat when it came
to exercising the powers of justice which as has been seen
normally belonged to a consul ui ty— «-rinn.
traditionally belonged to the royal justices of Aragon.^
For a century and a half the consuls had to walk a careful
line in dealing with the civil cases which occurred within
the confines of the merchant community.
The king kept the whole area of criminal jurisdic
tion in his own hands or in the hands of his justices,
specifically informing the Catalan community that the con
suls would not have the right to try any criminal cases
whatsoever. Jaime also attempted to keep a modicum of con
trol over the civil cases whioh fell within the competence
of the commercial consuls by allowing appeal over their
15
decisions directly to himself or to his successors. This
was the first privilege involving the consules TilfrryBmHwrm
in which an Aragonese king specifically granted the right
of appeal over the deoisians handed down by the elected
consuls. This is explicable in two ways. First, because
of the peculiar situation of Sicily, the consul could be
kept under close observance. His decisions oould be dis
cussed and contravened, if necessary, by qualified legalists
Ik
The best single compilation of the laws and
statutes which applied to the Catalans is to be found in
Constitutions y altres drets de Cathalunva (Barcelona,
I/Oh-)* This remarkable oompedium gives many illustrations
of the general laws and statutes of Aragon which applied
to the city government of Barcelona and to the merchants
of the city.
^Capmany, Col. Bio.. Number *f0.
who were attached to the royal chancery* la addition, the
situation in Sicily was far more peaceful than that which
the Catalans often encountered In their peregrinations*
The merchants were protected by the Aragonese armies and
the Aragonese bureaucracy, and in such an Instance Catalan
independence could safely be kept in check. Although the
restrictions on the hearing of criminal cases relaxed and
gradually dropped from common usage by the middle of the
fourteenth century, the right of appeal continued for most
of the period of Aragonese domination of Sicily, with occa-
16
sionally chaotic results.
In 1288 the position of the Catalans on Sicily was
further strengthened by a concession of exemptions on the
part of King Jaime which gave the Catalans and other
nationals of the Crown of Aragon freedom from gabelas and
other duties on all sales and other negotiations involving
goods which arrived at any port of the island from Barcelona
or any neighboring area of the Crown of Aragon. The king
also conceded to the Catalans an exemption of two-thirds
value of the duties paid by the Genoese merchants under
terms of a much older grant of the early thirteenth century.
l6With the king always at hand and his justices
willing to hear appeals of criminal and (whenever possible)
civil cases it was sometimes difficult to convince the mer
chant community that the consul's decisions were binding
and that his authority was not to be trifled with.
This earlier levy against the Genoese had itself been a
privileged reduction of the high general tariffs then
common in Sicily, so that Jaime's grant put the Catalans in
an even more favorable position in relation to the other
merchant communities of the island. They now were to pay
only one-third of the special duties paid by the Genoese,
who still paid less than the Pisans, Venetians, or Tuscans.
In this same privilege Jaime went on to grant the
Catalans a right which was of real importance to the consu
late at Palermo. Any merchant from Barcelona or its
environs had to pay one schifato of gold (a small Calabrian
coin of fine quality gold) to the consulate as soon as his
merchandise had arrived at any port of the island and was
unloaded and sold or bartered. If the merchant, however,
desired to move a portion of his goods on to another port
for sale or trade, he was not required to pay any addi
tional consular duty on the entrance of his goods to the
new port. Since Palermo was the first and most logical
stopping place for merchants travelling from Catalonia to
Sicily, the consulate at Palermo stood to profit financially
from this regulation, while the Catalan merchants stood to
gain from the reduction in the number of separate duties
they had to pay. Besides this reduction of entry duties,
the merchants who dealt in liquids (wine or olive oil, pri
marily) were also given a new, reduced rate of tariff,
1 2 9
paying only two-and-one-half grama of oro fino per hundred
weight assessed valuation, while a merchant who dealt in
dry grains, either exporting them from Sicily or bringing
them from the East through the island on the way West had
only to pay the very low duty which the Genoese had been
17
accustomed to paying for nearly half a century.
The Catalans, however, despite their new consulate
and the special privileges accorded them l?y the royal favor,
needed further concessions in order to make trade in Sicily
more profitable, and between 1286 and 1288 the consuls at
Palermo took the lead in petitioning the crown for further
grants. The privileges of 1286 were reconfirmed in greater
detail, and the Provencals, Romans, Tuscans, Venetians, and
Pisans (but, significantly, not the Genoese) trading com
munities were specifically excluded from the special trading
18
privileges granted the Catalans. The Genoese must have
been negotiating about these matters at the time, for in
April of 1292 a treaty of peace and commerce was signed by
the republic and the king of Sicily giving the Genoese a
17
'Capmany, Col, Dip.. Humber *+2. The Genoese
apparently paid only according to the market value of their
goods at the time when they entered Sicily, thereby avoiding
the economic perils of fixed taxation and fluctuating prlceei
They paid only a.certain small percentage of the assessed
valuation per hundredweight or other unit.
18
AHM, Pergs. Municipalss.
19
new, favored position.
In 1296 the information for the consulate at Palermo
begins to Increase in scope and detail. For almost the nexi^
four centuries we possess a nearly continuous flow of com*
munlcations between the city council of Barcelona, the con
sulate at Palermo, and the kings of Aragon and Sicily. In
1296 Pederigo of Aragon, king of Sioily, reconfirmed all the
grants of privileges made by his predecessors to the Cata
lans, Including the right to elect consuls. The king
reaffirmed royal control over criminal justice and over
20
monetary policy in the Island. Por the first tl*e, how
ever, the Catalans were specifically given the right to ship
grain out of Sicily on a regular basis, and it was this
enactment which gave the consulate at Palermo the impetus
^ACA, Beg. 252, 31~32 verso. The Genoese who
traded in Sicily were to be required henceforth to post a
bond of assurance both for their good conduct and their
solvency. Furthermore, the bad reputation of several
Genoese merchants, especially Enigo Dam&r, was not to be
considered as prejudicial to the legitimate commercial
interests of the other Hbons horns" of Genoa who were
involved in Sicilian commerce. Neither the merchants of the
republic nor of the Corona de Aragdn were to engage in
transporting war supplies or food to the enemies of either
nation.
20
Capmany, Col. Dip.. Number 57. The royal control
over monetary policy was an attempt on the part of the king
to keep down Catalan speculations in foreign monies, con
sidering that the Sioilian currency was considerably debased
at the time and that some Catalans had been attempting to
turn a considerable profit by exporting Sicily's meagre gold
supply.
necessary to step up its activities. It also followed that
Palermo would gain a new mercantile importance because of
its hey position in this grain trade. Most of the grain
shipped by the Catalans went north and west, and by 1297 a
regular grain shipping service had begun from Palermo.
Attacks by Genoese corsairs, despite the treaty of 1292,
21
emphasized the importance of a strong consulate at Palermo.
In 1299 Carlos II, King of Jerusalem and Sicily,
wrote a lengthy letter to his son Robert, confirming him as
duke of Calabria, The text of the letter was primarily con
cerned, however, with the role of Catalan merchants and
sailors on Sicily. Renaldus de Damlbus was mentioned as
consul of all the Catalans on Sicily. Since his base of
operation was Palermo, he may also fairly be regarded as
the first consul of Palermo itself.
The letter begins with praise for the consul and for
the other Catalans of Sicily who had rendered valuable ser
vice in the conquest and pacification of the island. The
P I
Capmany, Col. Pin,. Number 57. Prom this point
until l*f78 or later the consuls of Palermo were actively
involved in promoting Catalan involvement in the lucrative
wheat trade, particularly beoause of Barcelona's always
urgent need for grain. See AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 153
verso, l*t78. For further notes on the Sloilian grain trade
and Catalan involvement in this aspect of commerce see
Petino, Aepetti e moment!: Romano, APropoe dn nnmqgrce du
blA; Trasaelll. Sulla esportazione. Produsione e commercio~
dello suohero.
king explains that after many years of bad government and
civic unrest, Sicily is finally at peace and he hopes that
commerce can now begin to flourish as it did before the days|
of the Angevins, The trading states of the Mediterranean
basin who were desirous of establishing bases in Sicily
could once again do so in complete safety. They had to
recognise Charles as lawful ruler of the island and petition
his majesty for the right to set up headquarters in Sioily.
All who promised no longer to vacillate in the policy
towards the king of Sicily would be graciously conceded
their petition. As a aign of special favor the Catalans
(gens ut lingua) were to have in perpetuity a consul to
. 4
hear all civil disputes arising in the Catalan community.
Any case which involved problems short of bloodshed were to
be handled by the consul, though his verdicts in cases in
which blood had been spilled could be appealed to the Icing's
curia.
Because of the increase in violence within the con
sular area at Palermo, the king forbade the carrying of
weapons by any Catalan merchant or seaman, though the consul
himself and his most trusted lieutenants could bear arms in
order to intervene in any quarrel which appeared as though
it might get out of hand. The consul was thus made respon
sible for policing the consulate and for maintaining order
among both resident and visiting Catalans.
133
Any Catalan, the letter continues, who came to the
island and who had not carried goods to the enemy of the
king was free to settle in the Catalan barrios of Sicily.
First he was required to petition in writing the members of
the king's curia residing on Sicily jat the time and to
secure their approval for his residency. Ho Catalan, once
he had settled in a Sicilian city, was to take part in any
piratioal activities, especially against any other merchant
operating out of a Sicilian port. If a Catalan committed
brigandage outside the port or outside the neighborhood of
Palermo, the king's officials could arrest and detain him,
and he would be punished as a criminal. The king then
asked for the complete loyalty of the Catalans in obeying
the orders and verdicts of the Catalan consuls, provided
22
the consuls lawfully carried out their regular duties.
To this point the story of the consulate at Palermo
has been relatively generalized. The kings neither had
time nor reason to differentiate sharply between the vari
ous new consulates growing up. By 1303 Palermo, Bagusa,
Trapani, and Messina possessed individual consulates of the
Catalans. The exigencies of trading in the island, with
its widely separated commercial centers, obviously had meant
that one consul at Palermo, even if in close proximity to
22Capmany, Col. Dip.. Humber 59.
13V
!
the court and royal officials, could not long provide the
kind of support and assistance required by the Catalans in
other cities and ports on the island. In 1303 the historian
can begin to rely on documents which exclusively Involve
the consulate at Palermo. In January of that year the
oonsellerea of Barcelona wrote an agitated letter to
Guillermo Horatd of Mallorca, notary and procurador for his
son-in-law, Bamdn Bardoner. Bard oner had just been relieved
as consul of the Catalans at Palermo, and when he departed
Palermo, he sailed off with nearly all of the records of
the consulate. He had retired to Palma and still had the
records in his possession. The magistrates were particu
larly worried because Bardoner had kept All of the privi
leges and exemptions granted by the kings to the merchants
of Palermo. The city fathers begged Moratrf to use all of
his influence in persuading the young former consul to
relinquish the documents, asserting that the bulk of the
records and especially the privileges and exemptions were
the property of the consulate at Palermo, not the consul's
23 m
personal property. The tone of the letter suggests that
the conBellerea were worried they would never see the
^AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio 68; Beg. Gral. Cons.,;
folio k2 v mentions Messina's consulate, while Trapani is
mentioned in a letter from the oonsellerea. AHM, Beg. Gral.
Cons., folio 93 verso.
records again.
The year 1303 was a busy one for the conselleres as
far as the affairs of the consulate of Palermo were con-
cemed. On April 1, 1303, they directed themselves to
Guillermo dez Pulg and Jaime de Odena concerning the recent
appointment of Hugnet de Cambrils as Catalan consul at
Palermo. The letter is not clear as to why the magistrados
wrote to dez Pulg and Odena in the first place, but there |
is the suggestion in the letter that they had been delegated*
at some prior date, the responsibility of naming the oonsul
at Palermo, probably because of their close association
with the merchant community there. The new consul was to
have the right to appoint consuls in other cities on Sicily,
notably in Mesina and Trapani. Pirst, however, he was to
obtain the consent of the local resident merchant community.
If they did not approve his choices, he had to nominate
other men.
The letter also indicates the part Palermo played
in the mercantile economy of the Island and of Barcelona
itself. It had been decided that a new petition to gl»g
Pederlgo would be in order for obtaining further privileges
and exemptions for Catalan merchants. The Catalan consul
at Palermo, exercising a "primacy of honor" among the other
consuls on Sicily, was to explain to them and to the mer
chants why a new increase in the duties which the merchants
136
I
paid to the consulate at Palermo was going to be necessary.
The letter from the oonsellerea indicates that the cost of
- obtaining further concessions from the king vas going to be
appreciably higher than in the past and that the consulate
of Palermo was expected to pay the lion's share of the fees
necessary to reach the royal ear. It was pointed out that,
since the consulate of Palermo would receive great benefits
from royal favors, it was only fair that it pay the price
of these rewards. The magistrates then directed Odena to
collect all of the tariffs and duties of the consulate in
a strong box, to be turned over to the new consul, Huguet de
Cambrils, upon his arrival in the port. Odena was also
instructed to act as consul for that interim period before
Huguet took over, during which time he was given full
2*t
authority to exercise all powers of the consular office.
Huguet de Cambrils must have been eager to assume
his new post, for a letter of May 27, 1303, indicates he
25
had taken over his new office from the temporary consul.
The conaelleres wrote to Huguet and to the master of
bridges and bridge-building at Palermo, asking the bridge
maker to turn over to Huguet the thirty ounces of gold which
King Pederigo granted annually to the city of Barcelona for
Ok
AHM, Beg. Oral. Cons., folio 83 verso.
■'AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio 102.
137
construction of a bridge over the LI ob re gat River, Why the
bridge maker of Sicily had the money in the first place is
not clear. That the city council asked him to give the
money to their consul was practical and reflects the basic
Catalan fear that he who has money will abscond with it
most likely, the consul was at least their nominal employee.
On June 28, 1303, the conselleres wrote directly to
Consul Huguet concerning the difficulties of obtaining the
hoped for privileges (mentioned in April) from the king. A
rich merchant of Palermo, Pedro Romen, had lent three
ounces of pure gold to Berenguer 9a Tria, the Consul of
Messina, and to Pedro de Sellcrup, another merchant, for
the purpose of obtaining confirmation of the privileges
which the king had recently granted to the Catalans. Since
the three ounces in question had not been paid out, and as
the loan had been for the benefit of the whole community,
the conselleres desired that the subscription be paid from
the proceeds which the consulate collected as customs
26
duties. They did not approve of one man footing the
whole bill, at least in this particular instance.
By August of 1303 Huguet’a level of discipline
within the consulate had dropped sharply. On the third of
that month the oonsellerea were compelled to write direotly
2^AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 106 verso.
to the Catalan merchants of Palermo, admonishing them to
obey promptly and voluntarily the directives of the consul.
The city council was forced to write, the letter says,
because of recent letters of protest, written by merchants
of Palermo, which had been read before the council in
Barcelona. The protests involved an increase in the (tasas)
rates of valuation for customs duties recently declared by
27
the consul of Palermo. The conselleres emphasised that
such protests by the merchants were unwarranted and were
not covered by the limited rights of appeal previously
granted by the king. The right of appeal existed, first of
all, only regarding judicial decisions. Administratively,
the consul at Palermo, like his colleagues in other cities,
had a free hand in the internal administration of his con
sulate. Secondly, merchants could only appeal to the king's
justices anyway, for Palermo no right of appeal had been
20
granted or implied to Barcelona.
2?AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio 111.
2®Apparently the king's earlier privileges allowing
appeal to his own officials over the verdicts of the consuls
of Palermo had been accidentally (or perhaps deliberately)
misinterpreted as a mandate for appeals to the city council
of Barcelona. This misunderstanding is natural, however,
because most Catalan merchants had seldom had any dealings
with the Aragonese officials either in Catalonia or in the
field, and certainly would prefer to deal with the con-
sellerea whom they know well and whose administration of
appeals was reasonably prompt and fair. Furthermore this
new nexus between king and Catalan created by the right of
appeal must have been difficult for the Catalans to adjust
to in view of their stubborn independence at home.
139
i
No sooner had the conaelleree settled Huguet’a i
i
discipline problems than they were forced to write him
again. In an undated letter from early September the
magistrados requested Huguet to permit the consul of
Trapani, Bernardo Robert, to tap the cash box of the consu
late of Palermo. Realising that this might come as a sur
prise to Huguet, the oonselleres went on to explain that
the city of Trapani owed Bernardo Robert a handsome sum of
money for his expenses in running the oonsulate there and
for his personal salary. Since they could not or would not
pay at the time of writing, however, the conselleres
instructed Huguet to arrange what must have been intended
as a loan. The matter was particularly urgent as Roberto
had made up a number of bills out of his own pocket in
order to pay off some of the bills owed by the consulate at
2 9
Trapani. There are few other examples of a consul dip
ping into his own purse to cover the bills of his consulate
The letter to Huguet concludes with further admonitions to
him regarding the matter of new privileges for the Catalan*
The consul was to work harder at extracting them from the
monarch and at getting those already obtained officially
confirmed. The conselleres also wanted to know if Huguet
^AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio ll*f verso. We laok
the last line and a half of this letter with the paraphena-
lia of dating.
lbO
i
had succeeded in raising the necessary bribes from out of
the customs duties. If he had not, he was to improve his
collection methods, as the city council expected prompt
results.
If Huguet*s financial position was already strained
by the Council of One Hundred's thinly disguised threat,
their next letter did little to improve it. On November 2,
1303, the nagistradoa requested of Huguet that he pay out a
sum of money (unspecified) to Berenguer de Congres, a mer
chant of Barcelona recently returned from several years in
Sicily. Berenguer, it seems, was suing the city council for
unpaid salary owed to him by the consulate of Palermo for
his services as interim consul several years before. As
the city council had no intention of being sued, they
informed Huguet that he would have to pay the back salary.^
Whether this was to come from his own pocket or from the
consular funds is not clear. If, as sometimes happened in
other consulates, Huguet had delayed in taking up his duties
after his appointment and the merchants of Palermo had been
forced to appoint an interim consul themselves, then Huguet
would have been responsible. If, on the other hand,
Berenguer had been appointed interim consul before Huguet
Vas nominated, then the merchants of Palermo would be the
3°AHM, Beg. Oral. Cons., folio 120 verso.
ihl]
ones to pay his salary out of the funds of the oonsulado.
From 1303 documentation jumps a decade to 1313*
There Is a new consul at Palermo, Ramdn Marquet. The
Importance of the consulate has increased, and the consul
Is now more deeply involved in foreign affaire. The posi
tion of the consulate in such close proximity to the court
and to the foreign visitors at the court made it a signifi
cant listening post.^1 Relatione with the Moorish states
of North Africa had grown increasingly cordial, hut trouble
with the Italian communes appeared to be soon in the offing.
In August, 13139 the conselleres of Barcelona decided to
send one of their own number to the royal court at Palermo.
Bamdn Marquet was informed of this mission and sent a copy
of the letter of oredence for the envoy, who was due to
arrive in late August. The consul was, of course, to offer
this representative of Barcelona the fullest hospitality
which the consulate could provide. More importantly, he
was to assist in any way possible the envoy's mission to
the king (which Involved trade relations with the Italians)
and he was to provide any and all information whioh he, as
3lThe grain trade had picked up sharply by this
time, thus increasing the number of merchants over whom the
consul of Palermo had to exercise jurisdiction. The com
plexity of the consul's task was also increasing, as we
shall see, in that he had to serve as a diplomatic funnel
for commercial embassies both to the king and, more circum
spectly, to the other envoys of the Italian mercantile
communities.
l*f 2
32
consul, had heen able to glean that might be of help.
In 1315 consul Ramdn Marquet was called upon to
handle another kind of administrative duty, this one common
to nearly every consul in the Mediterranean. A ship had
been wrecked early in the year just off the entrance to the
port near Palermo. Who was allowed to claim what out of
the wreckage washed ashore? Marquet solved the problem
ingeniously: he simply let a young, enterprising merchant
named Bonanant Llobet salvage as much of the timber and
rigging as was still valuable and then confiscated the sal
vage and locked it in his own storerooms, pending an inter
minable investigation. The ship had belonged to two
Catalans of some influence, Guillermo dez Barn and Guillermo
de Osona, and their protests coupled with an excited letter
from Llobet, the salvager, brought action from the Council
of One Hundred. In a letter of June, 1315* these details
were set down and the consul was ordered unceremoniously
to unlock his warehouse and divide the salvage among the
33
interested merchants.
In August of 1319 a new consul was appointed for
Palermo, Guillermo Lied<5 . Apparently the lieutenant consul
had been serving as consul and the letter of credence for
3^AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 58 verso.
3^AHM, Reg. Gral Cons., folio 27 verso.
Lledrf mentions the lieutenant by name and asks that he now
oede his job to the new consul lledd, unfortunately,
began his job by intervening in the settlement of some
debts between several Catalan merchants, to the apparent
35
confusion of everyone. After this episode, which occurred
on August 13, a very interesting event occurs. Guillermo
dez Puig is addressed as the consul of the Catalans in
Palermo, which would normally indicate that Iledd had been
replaced. At the foot of this letter, however, there is a
note that copies were to be sent to several other Sicilian
*
consuls and to G. Lled<$, "consol dels Cathalans en Palerm."
Apparently for a brief time there were two consuls at
36
Palermo. In fact, Lledd remained at his post at least
37
until lS^i an extremely lengthy term of duty as a consul.
Dez Puig's name was not mentioned from this point on.
^AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 31*
35ahm, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 33 verso; AHM, Reg.
Grad. Cons., folio 3*+. The first of these documents again
announces Lledd's election as consul, and also includes a
mention of some outstanding mercantile disputes which have
for long remained unsolved. Several merchants owed another
of their number large sums of money, and the debt had never
been either paid or declared invalid. Lled<$ apparently
took this notice as a cue to his first official activity,
for the second document indicates that he leaped Immediately
into this commercial feud.
3^AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 67 verso.
3?AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio *+3 verso.
Despite his financial "blunders of 1319* Hedd had
developed by 1320 a surprising new expertise in business
natters. A merchant of Barcelona named Jaime Bos had died
at Palermo, leaving goods, merchandise, and nine slaves
behind. Lledd had promptly seized the entire lot and, like
Marquet before him, had locked the merchandise away. Unfor
tunately for Iiledd, the dead man had had a partner,
Bernardo de Closa, who, as a citizen of Barcelona, requested
the magistradoa to force Lled<$ to release the goods and
slaves. The city council agreed, and Bledrf was forced to
comply
Within the next three years, steps were taken by
the city government of Barcelona to integrate the consulate
of Palermo with the other, newer consulates of Sardinia and
Corsica. There was also an attempt to give Palermo a
larger place in the general economic picture laid out by
the city government. In July of 1322 the conselleres
informed Lledd that henceforth no Catalan ship from Palermo
would be required to pay an impost for the voyage to
Sardinia if its oargo was grain and if it stopped to pick
up more at Mallorca. The reasoning behind this somewhat
complicated ruling is not difficult to see. This encouraged
the grain trade of both areas and provided a ready market
^®AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 5l.
39
for the developing supply trade of Palma. This ordinance
also brought the consulate of Palermo more closely under
the scrutiny of the Barcelonan Consulado del Mar and. tied
it into the economic structure planned by Barcelona.
In October of 1326 the trouble with the Genoese
Republic flared up into violence, both at Palermo and on
the high seas. The ordinance which gave Catalan ships from
Palermo privileges in regard to shipping grain to Sardinia
and Corsica cut deeply into the Genoese grain trade, which
had formed an important part of Genoese commerce originat
ing on Sicily. At the same time the privileges which the
kings of Sicily had continued to grant to the Catalans
under the urging of the city council of Barcelona and the
consuls had also contributed to a decline in Genoese profits
and influence. Whoever was at fault, the early 1320fs saw
increasing hostilities between Genoese and Catalans, and
the maglstradoa* letter to Lled<5 in October indicated that
hostilities were becoming very serious. The Genoese were
charged with attacks on Catalan merchant vessels sailing
between Sicily and Sardinia. They were further accused of
the illegal impressment of Catalan sailots when merchant
Lq
ships were stopped or pirated. While few of the modern
39^hm, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio 60 verso. The
letter is dated July 23, 1322.
liQ
AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 50 verso.
l*f 6
i
laws concerning piracy and impressment existed in 1326, the
Catalans clearly regarded impressment the more heinous
offense and, though they were powerless to do more than
sputter, they did that at great length in the letter to
Consul Lledo.^
What is especially interesting about this letter is
that the city magistrates of Barcelona were incensed with
the Ghibelline faction of Genoa. It is surprising that the
Ghibelline faction should have given the Catalans so much
alleged difficulty because the Catalans had steered a rela
tively neutral course for almost one-half century among the
b2
rocks of Italian factionalism. It is also worth notice
that several of the letters to the other Sicilian and
Sardinian consulates also specifically mention the role of
the perfidious Ghlbellines in attacking Catalan ships, even
though the Guelph party had won nominal control of the city
after 1310. The probability exists that the republic
simply winked at anyone under any ensign who was willing to
Ll
The conselleres really vent their anger in this
letter at a cost of several pages of parchment and much ink.
There are almost tears on the page.
^^There was no official stand taken by the city
government of Barcelona when in the later thirteenth cen
tury the Italian communes went through their first periods
of internecine strife. Since the Catalans desired only to
trade with the Genoese, there is no good reason why they
should have taken sides or, why, for that matter, one of
the Italian factions should have decided to take sides
against the Catalans.
beard the Catalans in their moat secure trade routes. The
letter from the fgoes on to indicate that other
subjects of the Corona de Aragdn (presumably the Mallorcans
and Sardinians) had also been attacked by Genoese pirates
(privateers). The other consuls on the island of Sicily
were also sent copies of the letter of October 11, concern-*
ing the Genoese, and were advised that further action on
their part might be required in order to halt the Genoese
depredations. What the consul could have done is not
disclosed, particularly regarding piracy. On the other
hand, the letter implies tensions existing on Sicily itself,
but here the consul could be effective, for he was in a
position to smooth problems. The consul had the "right to
exclude foreign merchants from the Catalan consular area,
and this certainly was useful in reducing unnecessary con
tacts between hostile -groups• Further, the consul could
punish a Catalan merchant involved in a criminal action.
Halations between Genoese and Catalans continued to
decline markedly during the next four years, with the consul
at Palermo required to do all he could for the Catalan
cause. As early as 1322 the city council of Barcelona had
levied a new impost on certain merchandise entering
Barcelona in order to repay considerable claims for damages
1*3
AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 50 verso.
3*8)
pressed forward by a number of prominent merchants who had
lost either vessels or goods at the hands of the Grenoese.
In late 1325 an extraordinary embassy had been sent to Genoa
to try and resolve these commercial conflicts, but accord
ing to a letter of February, 1326, the nuncios had failed
lamentably, the blame of course being attributed to Genoese
perfidy and intransigence. In 1328, two years after Lledd
had been drawn into these troubles, the king of Aragon
began to take more drastic measures against the Grenoese.
He prohibited the shipment of salt to the port of Saona and
a number of other ports along the Italian Riviera. y Since
Sicily produced salt of its own and since Palermo was a
clearing center for salt brought from North Africa, this
provision directly effected the consulate of Palermo.
Two years later, in 1330, Lled<5 was informed that
more drastic action had been decided upon, and a joint
Bareelonan-Mallorcan naval expedition was being fitted out
at Barcelona to sail against the Genoese. There is some
debate as to what Lledd was expected to do in this instance.
Was he, for example, to prepare to supply the ships, as the
consuls of Sardinia had been ordered to do? Was he to keep
an eye on Genoese merchants and agents at Palermo? One can
h ii
AHM, Reg. Grral. Cons., folio 23 verso.
^AHM, L. Cons., 1325-1326, folio 36.
only guess as to what the consul of Palermo's role was sup
posed to be, but supply and Information seem two logical
uses for his talents In any case, he needed to be
informed of the situation.
This expedition against the Grenoese was remarkably
slow in getting under way, however. Two days before
Christmas of 1331, the city magistrates were still having
troubles getting their twelve largest ships properly out
fitted and armed. A copy is extant of a contract adjusted
between the Council of One Hundred and three rich merchants
of Barcelona concerning the arming of a large coca of three
h7
decks•
Other documentation demonstrates that the city
council had to negotiate this way over every one of its
biggest ships. It was not until the late summer of 1332
that the expedition finally sailed, and there is no conclu
sive evidence that it ever engaged the Grenoese in any sort
^AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio 51#
L.7
'Capmany, Col. Bio.. Number 127. A coca was a
large galley resembling somewhat an old Boman trireme, but
shorter and wider abeam. It was a clumsy vessel, appar
ently, but could carry over four hundred men, which made it
invaluable for cutting out expeditions and for the hand to
hand, seise and board tactics which constituted the highest
refinements of naval tactics during this period. To com
pletely arm and equip a coos for sea must have been an
extremely expensive operation, as she carried more than
nine different weapons in sufficient quantities to equip a
fighting force of more than one hundred and fifty sailors,
plus her stores and extensive riggings.
of fleet or squadron action, though the armament of most
vessels vas surely adequate for seise-and-board opera-
tions. At least some contact was made with the Genoese,
because a letter of November, 1332, indicates that twelve
armadores (merchants who paid for the armament of a large
vessel) were suing the conselleres for loss of profit due
to an encounter with a Genoese galley. A few days later
the twelve merchants wrote another letter to the Council of
One Hundred, adding an embellishment in the form of a Pisan
galley which the Catalan ship had also fought while staving
off the Genoese ship.
Barcelona's war with Genoa thus ended on a Gilbert
and Sullivan note. As usual everyone who had participated
had anticipated rich rewards, and as usual sued the Council
of One Hundred when those desserts failed to materialize.
Bty 1331 * the consul at Palermo was able to get on
with other duties. His role in the war effort was not so
clearly defined as that of the Sardinian consuls, though
his closeness to the seat of Sicilian government would have
made his consulate an ideal listening post and one by which
ho
Capmany, Col. Din.. Number 130.
^Capmany, Col. Bin., Number 131. Por both of
these documents Capmany represents our only authoritative
source, as no one had been able to locate either of them
either in the Archivo Municipal or in the Archivo de la
Corona de Aragrfn.
151
i
feelers could easily be leaked to the Genoese. With the
military effort finished, the information of the consulate
at Palermo picks up again. In April of 133*+ the consellereaj
wrote a letter of introduction and credence to the chan
cellor of the king of Sicily recommending to him and to the
king the members of a deputation from Barcelona. The con
sul of Palermo, Guillermo Lledrf, was to be a member of this
embassy. It would only be visiting Sicily for a brief
period of time, but the chancellor was informed that its
mission was of the utmost importance, Involving the grave
problem of the increasingly high price of grain shipped to
50
Catalonia from Sicily. Lledd had not returned to
Barcelona, so it appears that the orohombrea from Barcelona
were to meet the consul at Palermo, thence to find the king
and discuss their problems. Lled<5 apparently had suffi
cient stature both in Sicily and at home to be included in
such a mission. There are few other examples of a consul
being included in a diplomatic or commercial mission which
Involved his consulate while he was still serving as consul.
lled<5 had been at his post for fifteen years, however, and
would be expected to know the proper methods to use in
dealing with the Sicilians of the royal court. He could
undoubtedly also possess considerable personal influence by
50
AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio 50 verso.
this time, particularly as the Genoese war had been of
diplomatic assistance to the Crown of Sicily. Too, Lled<5
could be the debtor for many farora after fifteen years.
This is one of our better examples of the role which a good
consul could play in the foreign negotiations of Barcelona,
and, since there are no further complaints regarding either
the scarcity or the price of Sicilian grains, Lledd must
have used his influence speedily and successfully.
By 1339 the consul at Palermo, the chief city of
Sicily, had been authorized toy the city council of
Barcelona to appoint all consuls and vice-consuls in the
island. Lled<5 was strengthened in his position as the most
important consul of the island by a letter from the oon-
sq Here s. dated May 11. The consul of the Catalans at
Palermo was given the power to appoint the consuls for the
other major cities of Sicily with resident Catalan communi
ties. Lled<5 was instructed that Hal qual perco com la
ciutat de Palerm es cap de la ylla de Sicilia, se pertany
metre metre consols en tots los lochs de Sicilia.H Since
the city of Palermo was the most important on the island,
it followed that its consul should have authority at least
,to nominate the consuls for the other cities of the island.
t
It is not known whether this is a confirmation of a privi
lege already exercised by the consuls of Palermo or whether
it was a new dispensation created at least in part, because
153
of Lledd’s long and distinguished career in asserting
Catalan interests; but the immediate cause of this eleva
tion of the consulate of Palermo was the growing power of
51
the consul of Trapani, Jaime Sentcliment. This letter
specifically enjoined the consul of Trapani from appointing
vice-consuls of his own choice in the smaller consulates of
Mozzara, Sacco, Alicata, and Girgenti (Agrigentum), less
important cities along the west coast of the island. How
the consul of Trapani had come to exercise the function of
elector is not clear, but the city council of Barcelona was
highly displeased. It wrote that it regarded Sentcliment*s
actions as prejudicial to the honor and authority of the
consulate of Palermo. As Palermo was the chief city of
Sicily, so its consul must be regarded as the chief consul
of the island, with authority over the other consuls. The
conselleres told Lled<5 that they would send a copy of this
letter of admonition to the consul of Trapani, and that if
Sentcliment did not cease in his appointments and acknowl
edge the primaoy of Palermo, then the conselleres would be
51
AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 5l; also Capmany,
Col. Bin.. Humber 1^2. Lledd had proven himself a smooth,
efficient operator by this time, and we know that almost
all of the oonsules t j T • f c - r » f t « ai »inoa attempted to curry the
favor of the local officials and to assist foreign mer
chants and officials when possible in the hopes of receiv
ing similar treatment later. There was not the hostility
among the officials of the various consulates which often
marred the relationships between the merchants themselves.
forced to proceed against him in another manner. The con
suls appointed by the consul of Trapani had to be out of
office within seven months or further action would be taken.
Lled<5 remained in his office as consul of Palermo
for at least four more years. As a middle-aged man he was
called upon to deal with a new series of problems in the
early 13^0*8— problems revolving around the Moors, the
Castilians, and the Aragonese. Relations between the houses
of Castile and Aragon were far from cordial under Pedro IV,
and the Castilians were well along the path of developing
that monomaniacal concentration on Muslim extirpation which
bore such splendid fruit under the tutelage of Queen Isabel.
The Castilians, therefore, with the support of the papacy,
52
declared yet another war on North Africa. This, of course*
alarmed the Catalans who were engaged in flourishing trad
ing with the Moors. The Catalans seem to have had the
strong, and probably justified, suspicion that the new
Castilian holy war was but another excuse to cut sharply
into Catalan profits in North Africa. The Catalans, there
fore, determined to give their merchants in Tunis, Bugia,
and Morocco as much warning as possible. They despatched a
volley of letters to every one they thought would be
52
See, for example, the dispensations contained in
AHM, L. Vert.. I, 355 verso-366 verso.
interested and sent longer letters of explanation to the
Catalan consuls in the vital areas. Sicily, of course, was
critical in Catalonia*s African commercial ventures and
Idedd received a letter, dated February 7, 13^1, informing
him that ten Castilian vessels had already sailed from
Seville. Their mission according to the conselleres. was
to capture any and all vessels which set sail from a
Moorish port. Without a formal system of international
law the Aragonese were powerless, of course, to do more
than protest, especially as they were treading on morally
Bhaky ground in the matter of trade with the Infidels.
Therefore, the Castilian threat was little more than aca-
53
demic. Lledd was probably expected to assist the Catalan
seamen to break this blockade in any way he could, by giv
ing shelter and protection and, most importantly, by warn
ing the many merchants who came to the port of Palermo of
the ten Castilian craft waiting for them just a few leagues
to the south and west.
Guillermo Lled<$*s last official function as consul
of which there is record, involved, like his first, a ques
tion of someone else*s property. On June 25, 13^3» the
conselleres ordered Lled<5 to surrender the goods of a dead
merchant, Pedro de Tarella, to a lawyer in Barcelona,
^AHM, Reg. Gral. Cons., folio 51.
156!
!
Galcerdn Casoner, who was on his way to Palermo to settle
the merchant's estate. Casoner had been retained by the
wife of Tarella, and the widow wanted her portion of her
husband's estate as quickly as possible. Lledd had appar
ently been holding out a little something for his old age,
and the Magistrates ordered him to settle up with the
procurador as soon as the man reached Palermo. It is not
known when Lledd retired or died, but it must have been
soon thereafter; one can speculate that he departed, after
all, with his warehouse tightly locked against officialdom.
In 13^5 the consulate entered a new phase of its
existence. The death or retirement of Lledd ended the
highly personalised, sometimes colorful, rule over the con
sulate of Palermo which bad been the hallmark of the early
consuls. From this point on the consulate of Palermo was
more closely tied to the administrative machinery of
Barcelona. The consuls from 13^5 until nearly the end of
the fifteenth century, are less independent. They look
more often and more nervously to Barcelona for orders and
explanations. Generally speaking, they are less often at
variance with the policy or methods of the Council of One
Hundred. At the same time, they represent the Barcelonan
policy of tight supervision over Catalans abroad better
^AHM, Beg. Gral. Cons., folio 113.
157
I
than any other group of officials.
In 13^5 King Louis of Sicily granted to the con-
/
aelieres of Barcelona the power of electing consuls in
Sicily. This of course was only a reconfirmation of older
privileges granted by Jaime and Pedro, but the significance
of this privilege is nonetheless great, because the city
government of Barcelona was specifically extended the right
of electing directly the consuls of Palermo, Trapani,
Messina, and Syracuse. Before the privileges had simply
given the city government the right to elect a consul of
the Catalans for Sicily, and, as has been seen, the city
council took that to mean the consulate of Palermo first
and foremost. The troubles with Sentcliment of Trapani
must have shown how weak was Barcelona's control over the
other consulates, and it can be assumed that the powers of
election given to Lledd in 1339 were intended to be tem
porary expedients to halt the spread of locally autonomous
consuls without direct ties to Barcelona. In 1339 the city
fathers simply had not had the legal power to appoint
directly all Sicilian consuls, and therefore had been
forced to rely on Lledrf's good Judgment.
The privilege of 13^5 brought all of the consulates
of Sicily directly under the control of the Council of One
Hundred, and to that extent diminished the favored position
of Palermo. The privilege granted by King Louis, as well
158]
as giving the city government of Barcelona greater control
over the Sicilian consulates also blocked out the areas
and cities over which the major consulates were to exert
authority. Bach of the larger cities was to exercise
limited hegemony over the smaller cities and towns of the
island which had consuls. The consul of Palermo was made
responsible for the administration and general policies of
the consulates of Caphalo and those of the province of
Termaro and those lying beyond the river Salso. The con
suls of Messina, Trapani, and Syracuse were to have the
responsibility of appointing the vice-consuls who governed
many of the other small consulates. All consuls were
responsible ultimately to Barcelona and often received
orders and directives directly from the conselleres. but
for general purposes the major consuls were responsible for
the consulates of their respective "districts,1 * The major
consuls were elected by the city council of Barcelona only.
Their authority to elect consuls was then delegated to
55
their nominees in order to staff the many other consuls.
Thus, the Barcelonans were given a larger specific share in
the consular structure of Sicily, while at the same time the
consul of Palermo, with his colleagues of Messina, Trapani,
and Syracuse, was given more real authority in Sicily.
^5Caja III, Beg. 2, folio 18
From 13^5 until 1378, a period of twenty-three
years, there exists a complete hiatus in documentation for
the consulate of Palermo. Until 1378 the names of the con
suls who succeeded Lled<5 in the office are not even known.
The general direction in which Catalan policy moved regard
ing Palermo from other evidence, however, can he Inferred.
Certainly the Sicilian consulates were not frequently in
the thoughts of the busy conselleres during this two decade
period. The same puzzling lack of documentation is to be
found for all of the major Sicilian consulates during this
time. Catalan policy was far more concerned with commer
cial relations with Morocco, Tunis, Sardinia, and the
Italian communes. A new commercial treaty of 1361 with the
king gave the Catalans new opportunities in trading with
North Africa, by putting clearly in writing the various
penalties to be encountered in trading with the Moors with-
56
out special dispensation from the Holy See. The commerce
of Mallorca was also tied more closely to that of Barcelona
57
by new agreements over free entries for Mallorcan goods.
56
ACA, Beg. 557; also Capmany, Col. M p .. Numbers
182 and 183. See also the treaty of 1261, ACA, Reg. 1391 *,
85. A treaty between Pedro IV and the King of Morocco,
Abu Henen, in 1358 had contributed to further concessions
to Catalan and Aragonese merchants in that important trad
ing center. The terms of these new agreements are con
tained in two letters to the king* s plenipotentiary Matheo
Mercer.
5?ACA, Beg. 1167, folio 2*fl.
160'
In 1378 the consulates of Sicily again are men
tioned in a document emanating from the cpnaelleres of
Barcelona. In February of that year, the king of Aragon,
Pedro 17, allowed the city of Barcelona to arm a galley of
two tiers for the purpose of defending Catalan commerce
against the Moors. Apparently this dispatch of a vessel
was to some extent only a ploy to placate the Holy Father
concerning the Catalans* particularly cordial relations
(TO
with the Arabs. The king was required to promise that he
would not, in the case of war, allow any messenger or any
vessel or any merchant of the Moors to utilize either
Sicily or Sardinia against Catalan commerce in any way.
Furthermore, Sicily and specially Palermo were to do every
thing possible to assist any Catalan vessel involved in a
conflict with the Moors. Probably these terms implied
little more than a stylized formality, but it is true that
the Catalans were often at odds with Pedro IV over commer
cial and diplomatic objectives.
The next reference to the consulate of Palermo
occurs in 1382 in a letter from the conselleres of
Barcelona to Artal de Alagdn, chief justice of Sicily at
Palermo, concerning a number of Catalan merchants from
Barcelona who were on their way to the island with cargoes
Capmany, Col. Dip.. Number 207.
161
i
I
of fruit and other commodities from Barcelona. Artal was
to see that they were not overcharged upon entering either
Palermo or Messina. This was to he the first stop on a
long commercial tour for these merchants, and the mggis-
trados hoped they would he treated well and fairly in
59
Sicily.
The reason why this letter was addressed to a royal
official in Sicily and not directly to the consuls them
selves is puzzling, hut the mystery is cleared up somewhat
hy a letter of June of the next year (1383), addressed to
the consul of Messina and to all the other Catalan consuls
on the island of Sicily (a altres qualsseval consols de
cathalans constituits en lo dit regne). The consul of
Messina was informed that copies of this letter were being
sent to Palermo, Trapani, et cetera, as well as to himself.
The conselleres were writing, they said, at the request of
the "consols e patrons e mercaders" of the city of
Barcelona for the express purpose of setting forth new
regulations for the better governance of the consulates of
Sicily. It is possible, therefore, that in 1383 the con
sulates of Sicily were being mismanaged and that this
could account for the letter to the Chancellor Amal. This
impression is re-enforced by the content and tone of the
59AHM, L. Cons.. 1381-1383, 66 verso.
four new regulations governing the consulate. First, any
consul on the island had to have two pieces of narrow cloth
of a fine grade to use as a measure in settling disputes
between doth merchants and to help in computing duties on
cloth merchandise. Secondly, the consuls each had to have
two balances with a total of six weights of different size,
one a small balance, the other a larger one. These were to
be used in weighing silk, chiffon and other light fabrics.
Thirdly, the consuls were to keep the dogs around the con
sulate out of the corridors of the consulate during the
last three days of Holy Week while some of the merchants
were making their annual penance and communion, if any mer
chant requested this be done. Fourthly, no merchant who
sold cloth in Sicily was to do so without referring to the
standard cloths kept by the consuls at their homes, under
penalty of a fine. This standard cloth was to be marked as
to exact quantity and type as well as quality. This
standard was in no wise to be tampered with by anyone, again.
60
under pain of fine.
It is clear, therefore, that the consuls of Sicily
(including Palermo) had fallen into bad habits in dealing
with visiting cloth merchants, and the situation had become
serious enough to require the attention of the Council of
^Capmany, Col. Din.. Number 227.
One Hundred.
After 138** the story of the consulate of Palermo
becomes obscure once again, in spite of the firm new conneo-
tion between Sicily and the Corona de Aragrfn following the
agreement between the barons of Sicily and the king of
Aragon that Sicily was to remain firmly within the orb of
the Corona de Aragon in perpetuity. We know that the consu
late simply did not attract men of the ability of Lledd to
the post of consul. Between 1378 and l*tOO eight different
61
consuls served at Palermo. This contrasts sharply with
the three who served for the first one-half century of the
consulate1s .existence and gives an indication of why
reforms were regarded as overdue. It also helps to explain,
to an extent, wby there is lacking more evidence of commun
ications between Palermo and the city government of
Barcelona. The consuls at Palermo during this period could
not be relied upon to make the kinds of judgments Lledd or
Marquet had had to make. Nor were they men whose influence,
either by personality, family connection, or job tenure, was
sufficient to give them a say in the commercial or diplo
matic councils of Barcelona.
Another reason for the lack of documentation for
the consulate of Palermo lies with the preocoupations of
^Caja I contains a mention of eight separate con
suls for these years.
I6*+
the conselleres during this period. Mallorca, Sardinia,
Sicily— the cities of the eastern coast of Spain— had all
been brought safely into the Catalan commercial empire.
The city councillors therefore turned their attention to
the rival Genoese and to the consolidation of commercial
62
gains in Egypt and the Levant. Most importantly, this
was a time of internal adjustments in Barcelona itself, a
time for redefining city offices, of improving the physical
facilities of the port and wharves, a time for recognizing
63
the growing importance of the skilled craft guilds. The
commercial empire of the Catalans had grown vigorously for
over a century, and the last decade of the fourteenth cen
tury saw the reorganization of the administrative machinery
of that empire.
In 1*1-00, it is again possible to pick up a continu
ous thread for the story of the consulate of Palermo. On
January 28 a new consul was named, Jaime Caller. His rule
of the consulate was apparently uneventful. However, from
other evidence the historian can speculate on the problems
he must have faced during his five years in office. At the
beginning of the new year, l*f01, the king of Aragon, Martin
el Humano, dropped a bombshell on the international
^2See, for example, AHM, L. Cons.. 1383-1393, 19”
20 verso.
63]?or example, ACA, Reg. 9^6, 77.
165!
commercial scene. On Januaxy 15 he prohibited all
Florentines, Sienans, Lombards, and Tuscans from trading
anywhere in the kingdom of Aragon because of their usury,
their fraud, and their many mercantile illegalities. They
were forbidden to trade either as individuals or as com
panies and they could no longer operate through Catalan
6* +
companies or agents. Since these new prohibitions pre
sumably applied to Sicily as well, it may be imagined that
Jaime Caller had some very busy weeks at Palermo as soon as
the Lombards and Tuscans knew of these regulations.
In l*f01 the Catalans became involved in yet another
war over Sardinia, and the king allowed many of the consu
lates to undertake the job of collecting a special levy
known as the Lerecho de Imperials in order to help finance
the struggle on Sardinia. Since the consulates had "volun
teered" to help Martin in the war, this was an easy way for
65
them to meet their obligations. It would be most useful
to know what role the consul of Palermo played in this mock
struggle. Lid he help supply ships? Was he to be a lis
tener and a go-between as in the earlier conflicts with the
Genoese? Surely his position must have been strengthened
Caja I, Consulado Ultramarino, mentions the new
consul. ?or the details of Martin's prohibition see AHM,
L. Vert., II, 130 verso-131 * verso.
65ACA, Bag. 2175, 3
by the chaos in which his colleagues of Caller had to func- i
tion. Sicilian grains and wine and oil would have again
been called upon to supply Catalonia, and the troops of
Sicily could have been kept supplied from both Barcelona
and Sicily, thus assuring them a steady logistical position.
Unfortunately the materials to let one know how Caller
handled the consulate of critical Palermo during these
troubled years are sadly lacking.
On October 18, l*t05, Caller was replaced as consul
of Palermo by Guillermo Bartomeu. The Bartomeu family had
been involved in Catalan commerce for a century, and this
Bartomeu was a man of some ability and ambition. No sooner
was he consul than he fired off a letter to Barcelona
telling them of the more outstanding facts concerning new
disputes among the merchants of Palermo over a variety of
mercantile questions. The disputes involved bad faith and
nonpayment of debts, and Bartomeu obviously wanted the
whole affair cleared up as soon as possible.^
The years 1*+15 to 1^-17 saw four consuls at Palermo.
Francesco Casagra, a citizen of Barcelona was named to the
87
post on June 1, 1^15. He lasted only eight months to the
day. On February 1, 1*+16, another citizen of Barcelona,
66
AHM , Cartas Com. Orig., folio 179.
67
AHM, Notularum I, 183*
167]
i
Guillermo Oliver, was sent out to manage the consulate of
Palermo directly. Sometime thereafter one Bicardo Morisco
took over the job, to be replaced by Luis de Constant, on
68
July 20, 1*+17. Later that year the conselleres sent
Constan9 a message to the effect that a Catalan ship had
just set sail from Barcelona and would make a stop at
San Feliu de Guixols. This ship was carrying a very impor
tant message for the consul of Palermo and would make
straight for Sicily as soon as it weighed anchor at
69
San Feliu. Little more is known concerning Constant as
consul, except that he was consul during a period in the
early 1^20's when the structure of commercial administra
tion was changing in Barcelona, with the Consulado del Mar
achieving new powers to administer courts and certain com
mercial properties in Barcelona which had previously been
70
the domain of the Council of One Hundred. These changes,
involving appeals, may well have affected the consulate of
Palermo.
Another citizen of Barcelona, Juan Roure, took over
for ConstanQ in January of l*+28, to be replaced in two
years by Francisco de Gualbes, the most permanent consul
^AHM, Notularum I, 1^3.
" 69
7Caja I, Consulado Ultramarino, Palermo.
70capmany, Col. Pip.. Number 285.
of Palermo during the fifteenth century* Three days after
assuming his duties (April 25, l*+30), Gualbes was involved
with the consul of Messina in a dispute over whether or not
the consul at Marseille was to be recognised as the offi
cial "Ministerio del Rey de Aragdn" by Sicilian merchants
71 m
who dealt at Marseille. Though apparently Gualbes sided
against the unfortunate consul of Marseille, he remained
on good terms with the royal family of Aragon, for in March
of l*+3^ he was begged to intercede with the king. The
monarch, it seems, had terminated a truce existing between
72
the Catalans and the count of Provence. This truce was
most useful in conducting commercial forays in southern
t
France, and the conselleres requested Gualbes to do all he
could to get the king to change his mind, especially while
he had his sovereign close at hand in Palermo. Whether or
not Gualbes' charm was adequate to the occasion is not
known but it is significant that here, once again, was a
consul of influence and ability, a man useful for important
"diplomatic" work.
A year later, however, one suspects Gualbes may
71 For the appointment of Roure see AHM, Notularum
II, *+7 and M - 8. For the dispute involving Gualbes see
Notularum II, lM-2. Gualbes was actually acting as consul
a month before this time as a letter of March indicates,
but in April he took over officially.
72AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 88.
16?
have been under something of a cloud, for a letter of
May 27, 1^35» informs him that by the terms of Palermo*s
earliest privileges merchants need only pay a consular duty
once, even though they travelled to other cities of the
island and returned. Apparently the conselleres regarded
this duty as unitary, divisible among all of the consulates
73
of Sicily, but collectible only onoe. In a period of
rising prices, Gualbes must have been trying to squeeze
additional duties out of the Catalans who used his consu-
late, and the city council of Barcelona had decided to for
bid him doing so. How this one duty was sufficient to run
the large consulates of Sicily is difficult to understand.
Probably it was not, and the consuls exacted more money
than they had a right to under the existing duties. Gualbes
got caught doing it.
In July Gualbes received a friendlier letter from
Barcelona, this time a note of recommendation for a young
merchant of Barcelona, Francisco BesplA, who was coming to
Palermo for a brief visit in order to settle the question
of his inheritance from the estate of his late father
Guillermo dez Pla. The young man would only be in Palermo
a few weeks and would probably stay at the consulate.
Gualbes was to give him all possible hospitality. He was
73
AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 60 and 61 verso.
further enjoined to use his influence to smooth Francisco's
tL .
path during the negotiations over the will. This is a
good example of the duties which a consul had in relation
to the specialized visits of Catalan merchants. To assist
Francisco, Gualbes would have needed contacts, a knowledge
of mercantile law and procedure, and the good will of the
resident Catalan merchants. Lacking any of these would
have complicated the task and prolonged the visitor's stay
to an inordinate length. At All of the Consulates the con
suls were expected to fulfill a role similar to that played
by Gualbes in this case.
September of 1*4-35 saw Gualbes engaged in a less
elegant kind of activity. The Catalan merchants of Gaeta
had been led to several very "incautious and foolish
actions" in their attempts to defray expenses incurred by
aiding the forces of King Alfonso in his disastrous battle
75
of Pon$a against the Genoese and the duke of Milan. This
incredible fiasco was only the beginning of further politi
cal troubles for the Corona de Aragdn. Gualbes was
instructed to indemnify as many merchants as he could who
had lost property to the rapacious Aragonese army before it
^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 79.
?^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 131-132. There is in
this letter a tone of bitterness at the losses which were
being occasioned against the unwilling Catalans by the
idiocies of Alfonso.
had marched to ruin. Parthenaore Gualbes was to explain to
the merchants the dwindling support of the city of Barcelona!
for the Incompetent house of Aragon. (The 1^3^ expedition
against Tunis, in the style of Pedro el Gran, had lost the
Catalans a most valuable commercial base and a great deal
of good will and prestige.) Never servile, the Catalans
since 1^12 had been watching their empire shrink as a
result of royal ineptitude and they planned to watch no
longer.
The year 1^35 ended on a most interesting note. If
the regulations of the 1380*s concerning dogs and Holy Week
appeared out of keeping, a letter of December 22, 1^35,
strikes an equally discordant note. The conselleres wrote
to Gualbes informing him that they had arranged that any
merchant of Catalonia who contributed cereal grains to the
food supply of Barcelona would be exempted from primas
77
(the tax on the distribution of cereals). This letter is
quite fascinating in that it was, first, extremely unusual
for the oonaelleres to request any kind of contributions
from merchants abroad. However, the declining political
situation in Aragon undoubtedly contributed to new food
shortages and to the necessity for Barcelona to fall back
on its own resources. The Catalans had lost most of
^Soldevila, Historia de Catalunva. pp. 665-668.
77AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 168 to 168 verso.
172]
1
Corsica and a good deal of Sardinia during the autumn of
1*4-35 because of Alfonso V's concessions to Filippo Maria
Visconti of Milan in a secret treaty of October 8, 1*4-35.
Alfonso gave away cities, privileges, and Catalonia's
closest supplies of grain.
From 1*4-35 to lM+2 there is nearly a seven-year gap
in the records of the consulate of Palermo. Alfonso el
Magnanimo attempted with some success during this period to
repair the damage done overseas by his predecessors. He
re-enforced the Catalan position on Rhodes, Cyprus, at
Alexandria and in the Levant, but he failed to secure any
78
place with the Venetians. He also devoted an unwarranted
amount of energy and money on illusionary crusades against
the infidels of the Holy land. The consulates of Palermo
were used as bases to re-establish Catalan power in Moorish
Africa, but the island of Sicily was not helped by this
outflow of resources.^ In l*f*t2 the documentary current of
narrative at Palermo is resumed. The conselleres wrote in
January to Gualbes asking him to look into a claim put
forward by a citizen of Palermo, Bartolom6 de Manueli,
against a Catalan merchant, Nicolds Figueras. The consul
was to investigate the Sicilian's claims and certify that
?®Soldevila, Historia de Catalunva. pp. 667-670.
^Soldevila, Historia de Catalunva. pp. 666-667.
173!
i
they were jUBt. If they were he was to make sure that
I
Figueras mettled up promptly and in full. The ooneelleres.
as usual, sided implicitly with & Catalan, hut they expected
the consul to he as Impartial as possible and to he fair in
his judgments and actions. He was to represent a foreigner
against a Catalan if the facts in a case so disposed him.
Two years later, in lWMf, Gualbes received a copy
of a perplexed letter written by the Council of One Hundred
of Barcelona- to one Jacques Coeur (Jaquet Cuer) jeweler of
ithe king of France. Coeur was at that time residing in
Palermo. The conselleres were distressed that Coeur had
intervened in the recently held election of the French con
sul at Palermo. Coeur, it seems, had bribed the French to
elect a consul of his choice, namely Gualbes. The con
selleres pointed out that Gualbes was already employed as
80
their consul at Palermo. This is the only instance in
which one man was formally elected by two nations to serve
as their consul. Why the French wanted to be represented
by the Catalan consul remains a mystery, except that Gualbes
may have had so many contacts and so much prestige that the
French assumed he had to be an asset, no matter whom else
he was representing.
The conselleres. in spite of this misunderstanding,
8oAHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 109.
undertook to represent Gualbes and the resident Catalans of
Palermo before the king. In a letter of April 3* 1^6, the
city councillors protested to the king in the name of the
consul and merchants of Palermo that a new impost which he
had levied against them (a harbor tax of sorts) was illegal.
The merchants of Palermo should be exempt from any such new
exaction under the terms of all previous privileges granted
81
to them and to the city of Barcelona. Alfonso undoubt
edly needed new sources of revenue, and it was one of the
blights of his reign that he lacked the ability to communi
cate his wishes and his needs to his wealthy subjects in a
manful (and meaningful) way.
Though nearing -the end of his long career, Gualbes
in 1^8 was still pressing the claims of Catalans against
all comers. Early in the year he had convinced the king
that a particular lon.la in Palermo should be given to the
Catalan consulate for its exclusive use. The lon.la had
previously belonged to the Genoese, however, and in July
they formally filed a petition to reclaim it because of
their ancient title to it and because of their long record
82
of previous usage. Gualbes was extremely reluctant to
back down, and it is not certain that either the Genoese or
®^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 6^-65
®2AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 13*+.
the Council of One Hundred ever got him to concede thie
point.
Francisco de Gualbes retired as consul sometime in
the autumn of l1 *51. He was the last of the colorful con
suls of Palermo. On November 26, l*t5l, his successor was
appointed, a merchant of Barcelona and Palermo named
Galcerdn de Corbera. Previously Francisco Alegre and
Manuel de Corbera, the nrocuradores of Gualbes had made his
retirement official and the way had been cleared for
Gualbes* Galcer6n to assume office. Galcerdn apparently
was a consul who continued to run a business of his own
while at his new job, and in 1^52 he was involved in a law
suit with another merchant, Felipe Amado. The terms of the
brief notice are such that we do not know who was suing
whom, but the issue at stake was an unpaid bill for 1^9
83
bundles of fine grade linen.
Galcerdn did not live long in his job. He died
sometime in 1^58, and his successor was then elected in
December. Juan de Torrento took over the post of Catalan
consul of Palermo. In 1^59 he began his duties by writing
the city government of Barcelona in behalf of the merchants
of Palermo. The conselleres then wrote to the king
soliciting him to maintain honorably certain privileges
83
Caja I, Consulado Ultramarino, Palermo.
relative to the obligation of the royal treasury to pay
de
bacle loans made by Catalan Merchants of Palermo. The
privileges involved the exemption from certain customs
duties at Barcelona for merchants coming from Palermo and a
guaranteed interest rate on the loans. Furthermore, the
money was to be paid back at a predetermined place in
Palermo
In 1^62 the cronaelleres announced their approval of
a wide variety of settlements recently completed between
Catalan merchants of Palermo. There had apparently existed
a number of unsettled cases in the consular courts and the
consul had finally applied himself to giving judgment on a
number of them. These judgments must indeed have involved
either important merchants or else a history of long and
bitter communications with Barcelona to have elicited so
86
much response from the conselleres.
The documentation for the consulate of Palermo
jumps next to a series of documents beginning in the year
1^75. In a letter of May 6, the conselleres requested the
merchants of Palermo to respect the authority and privileges
of Francisco Alegre, the lieutenant consul of Palermo.
Q| i
Caja I, Consulado Ultramarino, Palermo.
85AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio IS^l^O.
88AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 198 verso.
177]
Alegre had been appointed acting consul by Corbera, to
87
serve as consul in his absence. Alegre had been one of
the two orocuredores of Gualbes who had officially announced
the old consul's resignation in November of l**5l. He
apparently had decided to stay on in Palermo and at some
point had been elected as lieutenant-consul there. He was
now, in 1^75, one of the few lieutenant-consul*s lucky
enough to get the opportunity of enjoying the prestige and
the privileges of full consul, as well as all of the duties
88
of the office. Corbera must have decided during the
summer that he would not return to the job of consul, for
on August 25, 1^75, the conselleres address a letter to
Alegre as the new consul of the Catalans in Palermo
Alegre's first duties of which we have knowledge involved
the son of Stassi Alexandrino, master of wharves in the
city of Palermo. The son of Stassi was moving (or being
sent) to Barcelona, and Alegre was to use his contacts to
make the young man's trip easier and to assure him of an
®^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 6.
88
It was not often, generally, that a lieutenant-
consul was allowed actually to act as consul. More usually
he simply retained his own duties and attempted to fill in
for the consul. In this instance, however, the lieutenant
was actually appointed consul on an interim basis.
B^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 62 verso
178
90
early departure. The master of wharves stayed on in
Palermo for several more years. In 1^78 Alegre received a
letter from the city council of Barcelona concerning the
construction of a new wharf at Palermo and the advisability
of employing Stassi Alexandrine1s professional services in
the surveying and building. Alegre was also informed about
new provisions for the transport of wheat from Sicily to
Barcelona. The warehouses of Barcelona were ready to
receive as much wheat as Alegre could process through the
port of Palermo. The consul was also requested to interest
as many merchants as possible in participating in the grain
91
trade. In September of lM-78 Stassi Alexandrine's other
son ajLso decided to go to Barcelona. Alegre was asked to
help him secure passage for the voyage. Apparently he was
an assistant to his father in the wharf-building business,
and the father had not been terribly pleased with his
departing.
In another letter of September 6, 1^78, Alegre was
informed of the real urgency of obtaining more wheat for
Barcelona's grain supply. His campaign to recruit suppliers
must not have been going well, and there is a note of
urgency in the letter from the Conselleres. Alegre was
90ahm, Lletr, Clos., folio 62 verso.
91AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 109*
179
given full official authorization to buy aa much Sicilian
wheat as he could* He was also authorized to arrange for
its transfer from the warehouses of Palermo to any available
Catalan vessels and to see that the ships proceeded as
92
quickly as practicable to Barcelona* This is one of the
few instances of the conselleres going outside the normal
channels of Catalan commerce abroad, which indicates the
seriousness of the food problem in Barcelona*
Two years later the conselleres wrote to the sindico
of the merchants of Palermo concerning the fact that though
the consulate of Palermo had for long accepted and acknowl
edged Francisco Alegre as consul, a merchant named
Cavallerfa had lately been discussing whether or not Alegre
go
was really the legal consul of Palermo. This is a par
ticularly interesting letter because within four months
Alegre had appointed Caspar de Casasage as acting consul*
Casasage had been lieutenant-consul of Palermo for some
years and it is worth noting that he, like Alegre before
him was promoted from lieutenant-consul to acting consul.
Gaspar de CaBasage, acting in May of l*+80 as both consul
and lieutenant-consul, received a letter from the Council
of One Hundred concerning the manufacture of arms for the
92AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 152 verso.
93AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 17.
Catalans of Palermo and their distribution to the merchants
Q l f .
of the consulate. Further, Alegre was instructed on the
distribution of weapons to the other seaport consulates of
Sicily for the proposed defense of the whole island. The
question of defending the consulate certainly lay within
the competence of the lieutenant-consul, but he must have
had real influence to have been expected to supervise the
other full consuls in regard to general defense of the
95
island. '
By September of l*+80 Casasage appears to have been
again relegated to the role of lieutenant-consul full time.
Francisco Alegre was back on the job as consul and deeply
engaged in fending off the challenge to his authority posed
by Cavalleria, who had questioned the legitimacy of
96
Casasage's appointment earlier in the year. On September
9 the conselleres wrote to Gasper de Arinyo, the king's
secretary in Sicily, asking him to intercede in this dis
pute over the consulate. The city government of Barcelona
made it clear that they favored Alegre and that they hoped
the secretary would intervene in his favor before the
^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 65 verso.
95
7yThis work of defense would ordinarily have been
handled by professionals in the king's employ, especially
the city captains.
9^AHM, Lletr. Clos., folios 10*+ and 105.
181
97
king. Nine days after this letter was written to the
i
king's secretary, the conselleres tried again in Alegre's
behalf. This time they wrote to the vice-chancellor of
the realm, Jay me Gaspar, asking that he intervene in this
98
dispute on Alegre's behalf. Apparently the king's secre
tary^ had not been able to resolve the problem, and the city
council had decided that additional pressure had to be
brought to bear on the king.
This dispute dragged on until 1482 when Gasper de
"casa Saggia" was nominated for the post of consul of the
99
Catalans at Palermo. What this means is that Casasage,
the lieutenant-consul, was finally chosen as the official
consul. We do not know what had happened to eliminate
both Alegre and his rival Cavallerfa, but Casasage appar
ently had done such a good job as acting consul two years
before that he was the logical choice for the job. In
August of 1484 Casasage received a letter informing him
that his nomination had been received favorably by the king
and that he was to exercise his authority in assisting a
merchant of Barcelona, Juan Canyadde, who was on his way to
100
Palermo to obtain the goods of his brother Gaspar. It is
9?AHM, Lletr. Clos., folios 104 and 105.
9&AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 109*
99AHM, Caja III, Reg. 2.
100AHM, Lletr. Clos., folio 156.
not known if the brother had died or simply gone elsewhere,
but the new consul was to give him all assistance and extendi
him the hospitality of the consulate.
Sometime after this Francisco Alegre was again
appointed consul of Palermo, though unfortunately we do not
have the date at which he took over from his former lieu
tenant. Alegre retired finally in 1^97, to be replaced by
Palermofs last Medieval consul, Pedro de Tarrent, citizen
101
of Barcelona. The consulate at Palermo, had existed
more than two centuries by this time. Starting as a gener
alized consulate for all of Sicily, the consulate of
Palermo had grown to be one of the most important links in
the Catalan chain of consulados ultramarinoa. It had grown
and expanded to serve the needs of the merchants of Palermo,
but it always retained the position of leadership over the
consulates of Sicily*s other cities as well. Its position
so near to the Sicilian royal court lent power and influ
ence to its consuls, several of whom must be numbered among
the very best Catalonia ever had overseas.
101AHM, Caja II, Reg. 1, folio ^3
CHAPTER IV
CONCESSION
The later twelfth and early thirteenth century wit
nessed a marked expansion of Catalan efforts to capture a
full share of the renascent Mediterranean trade. The first
crusades had introduced many Catalan merchants to the possi
bilities of the Levantine trade and returning warriors formed
a ready market for the exotic products of the East. Chang
ing habits and appetites meant prosperity for those Catalans
bold enough to strike out to the East, The long reign of
Jaime I was also of great significance in the developments
of Catalan commerce abroad. Jaime was determined to
increase the role of Aragon as an international force, and
his conquest of Mallorca gave the Catalans another secure
base for the Mediterranean trade. His treaties with the
emirs of southern Spain and of north Africa opened these
areas to Catalan merchants and his involvement in Italian
and Sicilian affairs brought the Catalans face to face com
petitively with the developed mercantile societies of Genoa,
Venice and Pisa. The affair of the Sicilian Vespers in
particular achieved at a stroke the dominance of Catalans
183
18 V
i
in Sicily, and from that island they were enabled to oper
ate southwards in Africa and eastwards in the Levant, at
Alexandria, and at Damascus.
The thirteenth -century witnessed the gradual estab
lishment overseas of larger Catalan houses of commerce,
located permanently in foreign cities. The itinerant mer
chant was giving way to the established family companies of
Barcelona. The effect of this increased commercial coloni
zation overseas was that the Council of One Hundred of
Barcelona was forced to rethink its position concerning
Catalan merchants and seamen operating abroad. The Council
of One Hundred was itself the product of the efficient
centralizing tendencies of Jaime the Conqueror's reign, and
its administrative and bureaucratic machinery was adequate
for the increased load of coping with the new problems of
merchants living overseas. This new merchant class operat
ing abroad needed both guidance and protection. In a period
of relative indiscipline among merchants away from their
home cities acts of lawlessness were common, as were more
subtle dishonesties involving false weights and measures,
forged business documents, and uncollectable debts. The
city council of Barcelona wished to prevent these abuses by
or against residents of Catalonia operating abroad, and the
method by which the oonselleres sought to effect this policy
was through the agency of elected consular officials.
185
The first Catalan consuls who dealt with the new
problems of the overseas community were the shipboard con
suls. These officers of the city of Barcelona were elected
or appointed by the city with the support of the ship’s
crew and passengers, to act as a sort of governor while the
ship was under way and when it reached foreign ports. The
Catalans borrowed this idea from the Genoese and began the
appointment of these consuls in the 1250*s. It was not
until the next decade, however, that a more efficient sys
tem of control and representation for the merchants abroad
was tried. In 1266 Jaime I gave the Conselleres of
Barcelona the right to appoint consuls who would actually
reside overseas, living right with the merchants whom they
were to govern and control. This marks a large step from
the office of the shipboard consulate, and was probably
derived from the slightly older institution of the Venetian
baulo (consul) at Constantinople or the Genoese consulate
at Naples. This consul ultr^arinn was given civil and
often criminal jurisdiction from the Corona de Aragon over
the merchants who resided in his area of influence. He was
empowered to hear all disputes and cases involving Catalans,
and whenever other national consuls would allow it, he
could hear cases involving a Catalan and a national of
another trading state. His decision in cases involving
Catalans was binding and final, and except in rare instan
ces no appeal from his decisions was possible. The consul
186!
i
ultrftnarinn was also given wide general police powers
within the barrio in which the Catalans lived and worked,
and his was the responsibility for the administration of
the buildings, the offices, the warehouses, and the general
programs of the Catalan quarter of the city.
The consulate of the Catalans served essentially
the same function as is today fulfilled by the modem sys
tem of national consulates overseas. Anyone who has lived
or worked in a foreign land knows the difficulties whioh
are fundamentally a part of this experience, and despite
the general uniformity of culture during the Middle Ages,
the problems which greeted Catalan merchants when they
decided to reside abroad were fundamentally similar to
those of today. Commerce during this period was usually
conduoted in the vernacular, not in Latin, and local cus
toms and more especially local connections could make a
great difference in a merchant's success or failure. The
largest part of the consul's job overseas was to provide
the assistance and the advice which Catalan merchants
needed in order to work successfully abroad. He advised
the merchants newly arrived concerning the commercial cus
toms of the merchant's new city, and often also provided
useful introductions to older Catalan businessmen and to
the local merchants themselves.
The consul also provided hospitality for visiting
merchants who were only staying for short periods, and was
responsible for the hospitals, churches, cemeteries, and
other similar facilities which often lay within the consulaxf
area. The consulate provided a place of rest and refuge
for the Catalans who traded abroad, a place where gossip
and news from Barcelona could be exchanged, where older
merchants could assist younger merchants in developing mer
cantile skills and in making local contacts, and a place
where accounts could be kept and compared over wine in the
evening. The consul acted as agent for the estates of
deceased merchants who had died without legal representa
tion while overseas, and provided assistance for the
families or partners of merchants who wished to reclaim the
property of deceased Catalans.
The consulates overseas were supported, in the
main, by an equitable system of duties and other levied
revenues which were paid by the merchants who actually
entered and used the consular facilities. In most instan
ces any Catalan merchant who entered a port or city in
which there existed a Catalan consulate was obliged to pay
an impost upon the assessed valuation of the goods he
carried ranging anywhere from less than 1 per cent to as
high as 10 per cent, though a range between 1 and 5 per
cent seems to have been most customary. The consul was
responsible for levying and collecting these customs duties
188
and the Catalan merchants were required by the Council of
One Hundred at Barcelona to pay their fair share. The con
sul could refuse the facilities of the consulate to any
merchant who would not pay his duties and could levy fines
or other penalties upon merchants who either could not or
» *
would not pay up once they had entered the consulate.
To observe the consul ultramarino in action the
writer used the consulate of Palermo, Sicily, as a test
case. Our documentation is relatively better than for
almost any other consulate and the fullness of the letters
which are still extant help to form a fairly complete pic
ture of a large consulate in operation. The consul had to
concern himself, as has been seen, with everything from the
internal policing of the consular area and the barrio in
which the Catalan merchants lived to the administration of
1
mercantile and civil justice among his merchant community.
He was also required, in several instances, to act as an
unofficial representative of the political or economic
interests of Barcelona or the Corona de Aragdn at the court
of the Icing of Sicily. His was the duty of keeping a close
eye upon the machinations of the rival Genoese, for example.
Although the post of consul never became formally associated
with the development of diplomatic representation abroad
during the high Middle Ages, the consul nonetheless ful
filled a quasi-diplomatic function closely akin to that of
189
i
the modern State Department consul. He gathered Informa
tion and used his broad business and social contacts for
informal negitiations.
The consulados Ultramar in oe of the Catalans, as has
been shown, were created to fulfill the needs of Catalan
merchants overseas during a period when commerce was still
a risky and adventurous business at best, and physically
dangerous at worst. The intricate system of consulates
which stretched from Castile to Constantinople provided
assistance, shelter, security, and companionship to the
many Catalan merchants who braved the rigors of inter
national competition to amass a fortune. The post of con
sul, with its many perquisites and its financial rewards
attracted men of real ability and often of substance and
influence as well. Educated, urbane, these consuls pro
vided a firm link between the city government of Barcelona
(and its complicated fiscal and commercial policies) and
the actual merchants in the field who were the mainstay of
the city*s ever-increasing prosperity during these cen
turies. The consulates overseas were among the most sig
nificant inventions of Medieval Europe for the purpose of
regularising both international commerce and international
relations. They made easier the flow of goods and services
which, beginning in the twelfth century, made Europe again
an economic unity of mutually dependent parts.
1
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Archival Sources and Documentary Collections
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Creator Rohne, Carl Frederick (author)

Core Title The Origins And Development Of The Catalan Consulados Ultramarinos From The Thirteenth To The Fifteenth Centuries

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag History, Medieval,OAI-PMH Harvest

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Advisor Queller, Donald E. (committee chair), Dales, Richard C. (committee member), Servin, Manuel P. (committee member)

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